AI imagery for political gain

In the ever-fraught area of political comms, the use of AI tools has emerged as a powerful yet controversial tactic. Recent events have highlighted how AI generated imagery is being used not just for satire or comedy, but as a strategic instrument of influence. 

Last week, President Donald Trump once again captured headlines (is he ever out of the headlines?) by sharing AI generated images of himself in roles that, it could be said, sparked a mixture of debate and outrage. The recent Conclave to choose the Pope was seen as the perfect opportunity for him to insert himself into that conversation and he did just that by posting an image of himself as the Pope. Meaningless and banal, it’s not what you would expect the office of the leader of the free world to be posting, but it sparked debate across all ends of the spectrum. On one side you had outrage, on the other side you had his supporters defending him and saying people need to “lighten up”. It also sparked a week or so of copycat/evolutions of the image as the eventual Pope was chosen – and from Trump’s homeland of America, nonetheless. 

He supplemented this image with another image of himself as a Jedi Knight – with a red lightsabre. Amongst a sea of discussion about the image, Star Wars fans were quick to point out that the colour of the lightsabre would identify him as a ‘baddie’. But the point is: both images were utterly meaningless but still took a large amount of focus from the media, meaning there was less time to focus on things like dwindling approval ratings, tariffs and national security… Very useful for someone that would like to take the focus away from themselves! 

The use of religious symbolism, especially when artificially constructed, raises ethical questions about respect, authenticity, and the manipulation of deeply held beliefs – but does that matter when you’re Donald Trump?

 This trend is not limited to the United States. In Burkina Faso, junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traoré has utilised AI to generate music videos of a range of music artists (he may need to speak to his advisors about the idea to use R Kelly, and perhaps his lawyers about showing him in collaboration with Rihanna) to promote his image locally. There are obviously several issues with this approach (where to start!) but it doesn’t mean it’s not happening, or that it’s not working – because clearly it is. This use of AI is very powerful but also dangerous in giving individuals the ability to create misleading narratives, and launder their reputation with ease.

Adding to the complexity, recent disinformation campaigns have employed AI-generated content to undermine important European figures. Last week, there was an online ‘joke’ that originated in Russia about French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer using banned narcotics on a train to Kyiv. This was quickly debunked, but there were several ‘comedy’ videos (also originating from Russia) created off the back of the story that showed them to be, in fact, doing just that. This type of content is easily shareable and can travel fast across multiple platforms. Whilst it was clearly a false story, it also helped to belittle European efforts to support Ukraine. 

As we move forward, the use of AI imagery will become more sophisticated and widespread. I would classify all of the examples above as a negative and sinister use of AI imagery in politics – and comms teams, voters, media and regulators will need to get a handle of how to manage this, because it is here to stay.