Believe it or not, another right wing news network got fooled by obvious AI slop designed to denigrate poor people who can’t get food because their food stamps are on hold.
On October 30, Newsmax — the TV network for people who think Fox News is too liberal, basically — aired an AI-generated video purportedly showing a woman raging at a supermarket cashier, threatening to walk out with her haul of groceries without paying because “they cut her food stamps.”
The video is fake. And it’s the same one that the actual Fox presented as genuine in an article it ran to drum up outrage over the perceived abuses of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which provides vital food assistance to nearly one in eight Americans every month and has been a long target of the right — and is now under more pressure than ever amid a lengthy government shutdown that’s leaving it short of the money it needs to feed people.
It’s an alarming example of how ubiquitous AI tech is being used to deepfake our reality and spread misinformation — and a preview of its potential to be abused to attack political foes.
Newsmax used the fifteen second AI clip in a recent segment called “The Cost of Free Stuff,” in which news anchor Carl Higbie bashes the “entitlement” of SNAP beneficiaries — all of whom live near or below the poverty line, and many of whom are also children, elderly, or disabled.
“Perhaps that person is in that position because of their own decisions and should make better life choices,” says Higbie of the millions of people who are now uncertain if they’ll be able to feed themselves or their family. “I think the government shutdown has woken people up to this entitlement and abuse.”
Higbie then pivots to making fun of SNAP recipients for their weight, which is when the AI video is played. Meanwhile, the chyron reads: “We Are Only Nation Where Poor People Are Obese.” Higbie even projects his own idea about the life of the woman in the video, who is AI-generated.
“By feeding people this junk, they get less healthy like the woman I just showed you,” Higby said, referring to the AI simulacrum. “I’m willing to bet she’s probably also on some sort of government healthcare subsidy program as well.”
But she isn’t, because she’s not real. The clip was likely generated with OpenAI’s Sora 2 video app, which released last month and has already proved capable of fabricating convincing footage of people committing crimes. The AI clip’s length of fifteen seconds is the maximum duration allowed for standard Sora users to generate.
Newsmax, however, has kept the clip up on its social media pages without a correction, which feels like in any other age would be a huge scandal. The flub was egregious enough that it was flagged in a video by Newsmax commentator and intelligence analyst Ryan McBeth, who explained away the blunder as an innocent mistake with no nefarious intent behind it.
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