“It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation.”
Fake Friends
In her statement endorsing Kamala Harris for president, Taylor Swift took aim at the AI deepfakes used to falsely manipulate her image to make it seem like she was supporting rival contender Donald Trump.
Using a photo posed with her cat Benjamin Button as a jab at Trump’s running mate JD Vance’s odious remarks about childless women, the 34-year-old Pennsylvanian said in her Instagram endorsement post that she had become aware that her AI-faked likeness had been used by the GOP candidate.
“Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site,” the “Anti-Hero” singer wrote. “It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation.”
Last month, the artist’s rabid fans were made furious after the former president took to his failing social network, Truth Social, to “accept” a fake endorsement from Swift and her stans that had been made using AI.
“We do not represent every Swiftie, but I think there is a reason we don’t need AI to show our support for Kamala,” Swifties4Harris cofounder Irene Kim told Wired of the fake endorsement.
Look What You Made Me Do
Despite baking cookies for Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020, Swift hadn’t yet come out in support of either candidate in this year’s race — and apparently, the AI fakery using her image helped push her endorsement over the edge.
“It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter,” the billionaire singer wrote. “The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”
Swift went on to say that was “so heartened and impressed” by Harris’ choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate because of his longstanding support for LGBTQ+ rights, in vitro fertilization, and a “woman’s right to her own body.”
Though she did not explicitly mention it, Swift was also the victim of nonconsensual deepfaked nudes earlier this year — a treatment so egregious that it led to X-formerly-Twitter briefly banning all searches of the artist’s name.
And speaking of Twitter and reproductive rights, the site’s owner Elon Musk responded to Swift’s endorsement of Harris in perhaps the most disgusting way possible: by saying that he would “give” her a child and “protect” her cats with his life, a likely xenophobic dogwhistle that seems very much to prove the pop star’s entire point.
More on AI in politics: Desperate Republicans Using AI to Generate Fake Photos of Donald Trump Saving Kittens
