Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign criticized Elon Musk on Saturday after the billionaire Tesla CEO and X owner shared a video with doctored or fake audio of Harris purportedly describing herself as the “ultimate DEI hire.”
Musk re-shared the video — originally posted by a separate X account, which labeled it as a parody — for his more than 190 million followers on Friday, with the caption, “This is amazing.” The video had been viewed more than 73 million times by Saturday morning, according to data from X.
“I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire,” a voice falsely purporting to be Harris says in the video. It goes on to describe Harris and Biden as “puppet(s)” of the “deep state.”
CNN ran the fake Harris audio through an AI detection tool on Saturday, which found there was “substantial evidence” the voice had been generated using AI.
A new line of attack: Republicans have used the term “DEI,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion policies, to attack Harris and imply she rose to her status as the presumptive Democratic nominee on the basis of her race and gender.
Critics say that amounts to a racist dog whistle, including Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost, who told CNN’s Jim Acosta this week that Republicans were using the “DEI” line as a “racial slur.”
Combating misinformation: Bipartisan concern over AI-generated election interference has prompted a patchwork of laws across the country, as state lawmakers seek to blunt the impact of misinformation and keep deepfakes from overwhelming voters.
More than a dozen Republican and Democrat-led states have enacted legislation this year to regulate the use of deepfakes – realistic fake video, audio and other content created with AI – in campaigns. The laws come amid warnings from the Department of Homeland Security over the ability for deepfakes to mislead voters.
CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed reporting to this post.
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