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from the I'm-just-a-guy-trying-to-make-a-difference-with-AI dept.
A tale involving deepfakes, politics, and a magician:
Louisiana Democratic political consultant Steven Kramer was indicted in May over the robocalls. The 39-second message, which told people to 'save their votes' for the November presidential election, was created using a text-to-speech tool called ElevenLabs. The calls were spoofed so they appeared to originate from the former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, writes The New York Times.
Kramer had worked for Biden's primary rival, Rep. Dean Phillips, who condemned the calls. Kramer claimed that he paid $500 to have the calls sent to voters as a way of raising awareness about the dangers artificial intelligence can pose to election campaigns, which sounds like a questionable justification.
"For me to do that and get $5 million worth of exposure, not for me," Kramer told CBS New York. "I kept myself anonymous so the regulations could just play themselves out or begin to play themselves out. I don't need to be famous. That's not my intention. My intention was to make a difference."
Making a strange story even weirder, Kramer hired an actual New Orleans magician named Paul Carpenter to make the robocalls. Carpenter said creating the recording only took about 20 minutes and cost $1, and that Kramer paid him $150 via Venmo. He believed what he was doing had been authorized by President Biden's campaign. Carpenter's account has since been shut down by ElevenLabs.
The FCC writes that Kramer violated the Truth in Caller ID Act, which makes spoofed calls illegal when made with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value. The FCC this year voted to have the law apply to deepfakes.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday October 04, @08:33AM (10 children)
You achieved something very important: prove yet again that in the age of AI, nothing can be trusted or taken for granted anymore. More people need to realize this fully.
You also demonstrated once more that anybody who works in or around politics is always a slightly disgusting individual at best. But everybody knew that already.
(Score: 3, Funny) by khallow on Friday October 04, @12:10PM
Or one of today's ten thousand [xkcd.com].
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday October 04, @01:49PM (8 children)
To those who are looking and understand what's going on. Problem is that at least 50% of those are quite pleased to take advantage of the situation and not alert anyone.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04, @05:46PM (7 children)
I'm sorry, I'm new at this. Can you break it down for me please? Which 50% are we talking about? And what's the other 50%?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 04, @06:19PM (5 children)
50% believe disinformation that contradicts government information.
50% believe what the government tells them to believe.
That adds up to almost 100%.
Believe that they tell you to believe, depending on which "they" you listen to.
Santa maintains a database and does double verification of it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday October 04, @09:45PM (2 children)
I don't mean to nitpick, but I'm pretty sure 50% + 50% equals a bit more than almost 100%.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Monday October 07, @05:15AM
The sets overlap, so that they don't add up to 100%. The remainder may believe nothing.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 07, @03:30PM
I was using floating point, not integer arithmetic.
Some decimal fractions, like 0.10 do not have exact binary representation in floating point but rather have infinitely repeating binary patterns just as 1/3 in decimal is an infinite repetition of decimal digits instead of infinite bits in binary. That is why you never use floating point to handle money in computers.
Santa maintains a database and does double verification of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04, @10:17PM (1 child)
And the third 50%? What about them?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 07, @03:31PM
They are the silent majority which outvote the other two 50% groups.
Santa maintains a database and does double verification of it.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Farmer Tim on Friday October 04, @06:46PM
Came for the news, stayed for the soap opera.