The first AI-generated political attack ad appeared this week. Duncan Grieve rates disturbing content.
The first political scandal of the era of generative artificial intelligence in New Zealand politics was the best fit for our country’s brand. 1News’ Justin Hu had an awesome scoop earlier this week, heading over to the public Midjourney Discord server to track down the original leads that produced some of the images used by National in a recent digital campaign, and uncover a bunch of as-yet-unused material to go along with them.
He found many dozens of images depicting a dystopian world of dark thugs, rich with money, poor pensioners and outright ghouls. Most were rejected, but at least four got into social media, and all together can be read as hints of a particular worldview, which indicates that the country is not just in trouble, but also almost without salvation.
This is the beginning of a strange new era of technology in politics. While social media was the focus of the tech hands during the last election, this will be the first post the mass adoption of generative AI. The technology has become widespread with text-based applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, or image-based versions such as Dall-E 2 or Midjourney. All require users to “prompt” a specific piece of text or image based on written input, which then uses massive computing power trained on billions of human-generated text or images to generate an original response.
In recent months, it has developed incredibly quickly thanks to events such as “drip pope” – the viral image of Pope Francis in Balenciaga, which has led to a series of misinformation spreading across social media. Predictions suggest that this will make it increasingly impossible for voters to tell what is real and what is fake.
This was announced by the activists of the Tamaki anti-fascist campaign recently on Twitter, “recent innovations in artificial intelligence could be used to create new and more deadly forms of disinformation, undermining our democracy.” Which is a very plausible result – the obvious potential for fake images and videos to further divide voters. What the group connected with, however, was Hu’s story – which seems like a much more down-to-earth, if deeply depressing, case of AI-generated imagery.
While no organization has yet claimed responsibility for creating the ad, suspicion has fallen on creative agency Topham Guerin, which has a history of creating social media posts for right-wing parties around the world. Hu noted that Midjourney’s original user operated under the name “TG Creative” before changing it in response to his requests. The Spinoff has reached out to Topham Guerin for comment but has yet to hear back, and the National did not respond to questions about the creation of the ad from 1News.
Basically, it’s very difficult, so the only correct response seems to be to try to critically evaluate the quality of the images and clues and turn that into a ranking of the material. One can assume that the scale runs from “God, this is disgusting, get it off my screen” to “shrug,” the likely ceiling for work of this nature.
10. Clue: “A medium shot of a criminal breaking into a house during the day. Modern house 2023.’ (Remix hint: “Do it at night. It’s dark and scary. Have a person break the window.”)
It’s just awful. If this thing is in your house, you have much bigger problems than burglary, and the new police minister is not coming to your rescue. Also, sorry to be pedantic, but he’s clearly breaking down outside at home
9. Hint: “Shop that is hacked. There is a frightened salesman and a dark shadowy figure breaking in. A terrible crime.”
This is perhaps the most unsettling of the series, thanks to the 1930s kerosene lamp aesthetic and the supervillain penguin looking down at the shopkeeper in the lower left. Like most of the generative world of artificial intelligence, aside from its initially dazzling realism, it raises many questions. How did all those papers get on the ground and all the bottles stay upright? Why does one store have a door, but all its products are displayed on the facade? And how these people are in and out of the store at the same time.
8. Hint: “Sad mom is counting coins in the supermarket because she’s poor.”
She looks sad, but is she poor? In this cashless society, how did these sad women get so many coins? At least three seem to plausibly have hundreds of dollars and/or buttons, while a fourth appears to have no coins at all, but an incredible amount of cans.
7. Hint: “A frightened woman clutches her purse at night.”
There is an abiding quirk of generative AI – at least three of these fearsome women have what appear to be hook-shaped straps around their necks. The voter has long forgotten about crime and is fascinated by unconventional fashion choices.
6. Hint: “Photo in the interior of a small store after riots, vandalism and robbery. Broken glass and trash on the floor, sad shop owner on the floor looking at the shop.”
Pretty accurate reproduction even if something isn’t being scanned. A clothing store owner provides fewer conveniences to customers than a record or book store. A spacious floor is simply disrespectful to the spirit or maximization of the assortment. The biggest problem is the clue – we have problems in New Zealand, but the riots are not massive.
5. Hint: “Unsuccessful student at the desk”
Not sure if Midjourney has registered with society, but young white guys with tousled hair usually have a lot of support structures around them when they start to fail. Also, maybe they should just move away from books and start the internet? very old times, which is a common theme.
4. Hint: “A man looks at his open, empty wallet.”
Of course, one of the most common images. But then you look closer and… why does that wallet have an eye? There’s also something about what this man does with his huge, empty wallet that seems a little “irrelevant.”
3. Hint: ‘A crowded clinic waiting room filled with sick people, the doctor looks stressed because so many people are waiting
Very close! We have clinic waiting rooms. Our doctors look tense. So many people are waiting for us. Alas, if all those nice doctors aren’t actually sick, it looks like we really do have the solution to our health care crisis right here – make those doctors work, stat!
2. Hint: “Two men are fighting at night, and people are running away from them.”
There’s a lot going on here. These men really have Lisa Praeger level bad technique At least half are punching each other. There seems to be a lot of primal screaming. One has a case of “exploding face that emits bright white light”, not so much. And then the last couple just happily shake hands, which is the exact opposite of a fight. Also, the tip itself appears to be written by a bot.
1. Clue: “A downtrodden couple pays their taxes at the dinner table in New Zealand. a Maori couple.’
Finally some variety! But… not so. Attorney Graham Egeler called it “really great photo”. Critics may strongly disagree, but it’s certainly the most naturalistic and non-horrifying, only let down by the fact that both of the pair appear to be using the same pen.