A frame from the fake video that was circulated this week across America’s social media networks. (Source: X)

Jill Biden Video Demonstrates the Ease of Deceiving Social Media Users with Fakes

An alarming fake video was discussed at length in a new article from venturebeat.com. The website shared a fake video of Jill Biden claiming to disagree with her husband Joe Biden over his Israeli policy. Ironically, the AI-created video would be affected by President Biden’s new executive order on AI guidelines and rules tightening U.S. AI policies.

Kenneth Lurt, a filmmaker and producer, said he created the fake video over the course of a week to draw attention to the war between Israel and Hamas and the Palestinian debate. He posted the video on X (formerly Twitter), where it had 230,000 views at the time of this article’s publication, and Reddit’s r/Singularity subreddit where it received upwards of 1,500 upvotes, or community endorsements. According to venturebeat.com:

“To achieve widespread engagement, Lurt deliberately selected a premise—a dissident speech by the First Lady—that he perceived as too shocking and controversial to ignore. Using modern synthetic media techniques allowed him to actualize this provocative concept in a superficially plausible manner.”

During such a volatile time, deepfake videos could do real damage if viewers believe what they’re seeing and don’t check the sources.

“The goal of using AI Jill Biden, was to create something absurd and cinematic enough to get folks to actually engage with the reality of what’s happening in Palestine. The drama of a radical first-lady calling out her own husband and standing up to the American empire — it’s too juicy to look away,” said Lurt in an exclusive interview with VentureBeat.

 Editing With AI

The use of AI and deepfake technology in political advertising is increasingly prevalent. Earlier this year, the RNC released an ad depicting generative imagery of a potential future Biden victory in 2024.

A few months later, the Never Back Down PAC launched a million-dollar ad buy featuring an AI-generated version of Trump criticizing Gov. Reynolds of Iowa. This ad directly illustrated how synthetic media could be employed to either promote or attack candidates. Then in September 2023, satirist C3PMeme posted a fake video depicting Ron DeSantis announcing his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race.

The links to the fake videos give an idea of how deceptive they can be. It’s incredible what’s possible with a little editing and some effective AI-trained tools.

While Lurt claimed he made the Jill Biden video to help make the world a better place, he failed miserably.

read more at venturebeat.com