by Sharelle Burt
July 29, 2024
This may get out of hand quickly…
Tech guru and owner of X, Elon Musk, is receiving pushback after he retweeted an AI-generated version of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign ad, causing concern about artificial intelligence’s place in politics.
The altered video contains imagery from a recent YouTube campaign ad of Harris speaking to crowds and videos of her supporters. What stands out in the fake video is a voiceover that sounds just like the vice president. “I, Kamala Harris, am your Democrat candidate for president because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility at the debate,” the voiceover said. “I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire. I’m both a woman and a person of color. So if you criticize anything, you’re both sexist and racist.”
Originally posted by a YouTube account named “Mr Reagan,” the video was labeled as a parody. According to the Associated Press, AI-generated media experts confirmed that much of the video was generated by using AI technology. University of California, Berkeley’s digital forensics expert, Hany Farid, said the video shows how powerful generative AI and fake deeps can be.
“The AI-generated voice is very good,” he said. “Even though most people won’t believe it is VP Harris’ voice, the video is that much more powerful when the words are in her voice.”
Director of the Security, Trust, and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech, Alexios Mantzarlis, thinks because of the popularity of altered videos in other countries, it was only a matter of time before they hit the U.S.
“In recent-ish elections in Argentina, India, and elsewhere, we saw deepfakes being used primarily for this type of surface-level deception that’s more akin to trolling memes than to legitimate misinformation,” Mantzarlis said. “I expect we’ll see plenty of this in the U.S. for the next 100 days until the November election.”
More importantly, the video showcases the lack of federal legislation and action to regulate the use, leaving rules up to states and social media platforms.
California governor Gavin Newsom took to X to express his displeasure over the fake ad. “Manipulating a voice in an ‘ad’ like this one should be illegal,” he said. “I’ll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is.” Musk responded, in part, that “parody is legal in America.”
I checked with renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said parody is legal in America 🤷♂️ https://t.co/OCBewC3XYD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2024
Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar highlighted that Musk’s post may be in violation of his company’s own policy. “If @elonmusk and X let this go and don’t label it as altered AI content, they will not only be violating X’s own rules, they’ll be unleashing an entire election season of fake AI voice and image-altered content with no limits, regardless of party,” the lawmaker wrote on the platform.
“You may not share synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm (‘misleading media’),” the X policy reads. “In addition, we may label posts containing misleading media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context.”
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Chipotle Chairman and CEO Brian Niccol appears to have seen and heard the many complaints from the franchise’s customers about their portion sizes; on an earnings call with investors on July 24, he directed attention to the company culture of “generous portions.”
According to The Hill, Niccol wasted little time in getting right to business on the call, reportedly in the opening minutes of the call, he reminded the investors, “[T]here was never a directive to provide less to our customers. The generous portion is a core brand equity of Chipotle. It always has been, and it always will be.”
Niccol continued, “With that said, getting the feedback caused us to relook at our execution across our entire system with the intention to always serve our guests delicious, fresh custom burritos and bowls with generous portions.”
Niccol’s comments come well after many social media users made a running gag about how servers at the chain have not served enough meat for years. Those complaints have received more attention recently after internet food critic Keith Lee posted a Tik-Tok video in May detailing a quesadilla hack at Chipotle, which went viral wherein Lee half-jokingly asked, “Where’s the chicken?”
That same month, following Lee and other social media users documenting instances where they believed servers were less than generous with their portions, Niccol defended the restaurant to Fortune while insisting and demonstrating that customers can give their servers a look if they were unsatisfied with their portions at Chipotle.
Chipotle has not been slowing down🌯 Do you think their business is growing because the portions are getting smaller?
From Yahoo Finance, “The consistency of Chipotle’s portions “varied widely,” with some locations selling bowls with identical orders that weighed roughly 33%… pic.twitter.com/IFhwkdm1Gs
— GROUPCHAT (@groupchat) July 2, 2024
According to The Hill, on the earnings call, Niccol did admit that portions were inconsistent but said that approximately 10% of the company’s restaurants needed to be retrained or recoached per Chipotle’s standards.
“To be more consistent across all 3,500 restaurants, we have focused on those with outlier portion scores based on consumer surveys, and we are reemphasizing training and coaching around ensuring we are consistently making bowls and burritos correctly,” Niccol said.
Niccol continued, saying that positive customer feedback both on and offline would suffice to get the word out about the changes at some of its chains.
“Look, I’m already seeing it in social media, people commenting on the burritos, the bowls that they’re getting,” Niccol said. “And, you know, I think that the best source of marketing is word of mouth, as people have these experiences with Chipotle.”
Although the company has raised prices in recent years, investors indicated on the call that there are currently “no plans” to increase prices further as Chipotle has posted an 11% increase in sales during its last quarter, which NPR reported was driven by stores being faster and more efficient in addition to its limited-time chicken al pastor promotion.
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