The internet is buzzing with opinions, criticism, and memes after the latest US Presidential debate. While US citizens have yet to decide whether current US President Joe Biden will continue his term or if former US President Donald Trump should take the reigns, Midjourney has already found its winner.
Midjourney Generates Donald Trump as US President
Right now, it's almost impossible to get generative AI tools to create texts or images that have anything to do with the US election, and that's because restrictions are put in place to avoid the potential for both misinformation and disinformation.
However, there are still ways around the guardrails that AI companies have put in place. For Midjourney, all you have to do is ask it to generate an image of the President of the United States, and it automatically provides you with images of Donald Trump.
Engadget found the loophole first and even tried to trick the AI image generator into using the likeness of anyone else other than Trump. After typing the prompt "the next president of the united states," the four images still depicted Donald Trump as US President.
To be more specific, the third prompt said "The current president of the United States," and three out of the four panels showed Trump, while one displayed a photo of former US President Barack Obama. None were of the actual current US President, Joe Biden.
The only time Midjourney would refuse to generate an image of Donald Trump is if you explicitly ask it to, meaning that you actually have to put his name in the prompts. Other users have tried the workaround and had the same results showing Trump as the US President.
Midjourney CEO David Holz said himself that it was not easy to put restrictions down. "[T]his moderation stuff is kind of hard," he expressed after saying that he would "put some foots down on election-related stuff for a bit."
Other tech companies have already signed the same agreement wherein its AI services would prevent deepfakes from being generated during election season. Some of the companies include giants like OpenAI, Google, Meta, Amazon, Adobe, and X.
How AI is Being Used for Election Deepfakes
Through the use of AI, it's easy enough to make fake photos of presidential candidates in the middle of immoral acts to dissuade citizens from voting for them. With a few touch-ups, anyone can correct the mistakes that AI image generators usually make like adding extra fingers.
It was easy enough to create a robocall using a fake Joe Biden voice. Back in January, a deepfake of the president's voice urged people to skip New Hampshire's Democratic presidential primary.
As per NBC News, It was the work of a veteran political consultant working for a rival candidate, Steve Kramer. He admitted to the creation of the deepfake and was not apologetic for doing so, saying that he was not afraid to testify.
The candidate he was working for, Rep. Dean Phillips, was said to have paid Kramer over $250,000 around the time the robocalls had spread, although Phillips denied any kind of involvement in the scheme.
