AI misinformation, meet your target audience.
Brain Worms
Conspiracy theorist and avowed brain worm haver Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says that he gets fooled by fake AI content “all the time,” as quoted by Mother Jones. We believe him!
Per Mother Jones, Kennedy — who, yes, is still running as a third-party candidate in the 2024 race — made the statements last week during a Zoom-powered campaign event titled “The AI Revolution: Live Conversation on the Perils and Promise of AI.”
During the panel — which was moderated by a guy who has falsely equated the COVID-19 vaccine with “gene therapy” and, as Mother Jones notes, frequently makes antisemitic comments — Kennedy admitted that he “gets manipulated by” AI-generated misinformation regularly, explaining that he has to rely on his kids to tell him what’s real and what’s not.
“Somebody will send me something and I’ll go ‘Holy cow, did you see this?'” he told the panel, describing an effective way for misinformation to flourish within like-minded communities. But, he added, his children thankfully often correct him — when he sends it their way, that is.
“My kids will say, ‘That’s fake, dad,'” the Kennedy scion continued, adding that they can spot AI fakes “immediately.”
Target Audience
Incredibly, Kennedy made the statement moments after saying that he doesn’t “believe it’s true” that AI-powered misinformation is a big threat, arguing that his story about his kids makes it clear that netizens generally have the agency and online literacy to discern what’s real from what’s fake — despite saying AI fakes manipulate him constantly, and that he has to outsource his own media literacy to his kids.
It’s also pretty rich to hear any argument about misinformation not being a threat — be it AI-generated or regular ol’ human-made garbage — from Kennedy, a notorious conspiracist with a long history of sharing provably false information.
Kennedy is perhaps most known for his insistence that vaccines cause autism in children, a baseless claim that nonetheless has taken root in many areas of society. He’s also falsely claimed that mass shootings are somehow caused by prescription drugs, has made egregiously racist and antisemitic statements inaccurately suggesting that the COVID-19 virus was genetically engineered to target certain racial groups while sparing “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” and has also incorrectly argued that manmade chemicals in waterways are turning children gay or transgender because… frogs.
In other words, if you’re running a misinformation-loaded pink-slime journalism site, Kennedy is basically your target audience.
More on Kennedy: Presidential Candidate Says Doctors Found a Worm in His Brain
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