I PROPOSE "REAL INTELLIGENCE" as opposed to "artificial intelligence," I think that's a phrase that we need to promote to fight against the "AI" that is destroying human intelligence and culture with ersatz "realism." How about this for a bumper sticker?
"WHY BELIEVE "AI" WHEN YOU CAN HAVE THE REAL THING?"
Mike Lewis at the National Catholic Reporter has also noticed the flood of fake "Pope Leo" videos that have been generated, having "him" say things he's never said using a sometimes near-enough imitation of his real voice and image to peddle lies that are, in fact, fooling a dangerously large number of People.
In the days following Pope Leo XIV's election, the internet has been inundated with artificial intelligence-generated deepfake videos, images, and messages purporting to depict the new pontiff. These media fabrications, some of which have been circulated on platforms like YouTube and TikTok, present the pope delivering messages he never said, sometimes even in his own voice.
For example, a YouTube video, entitled "POPES WAKEUP URGENT CALL TO ALL TRUE CHRISTIANS || POPE LEO XIV SPEECH," posted on a channel called "Pope Leo XIV Sermons," delivers a fiery 42-minute exhortation about the end times in an AI-generated voice based on that of Pope Leo.
A snippet:
"The sky is heavy with prophecy. The clock of heaven is ticking its final seconds. And I declare to you today: 2025 is not just another year. It is a spiritual alarm sounding in the heavens for all who still have ears to hear. Look around you. Do you not see it? The world is unraveling at the seams."
The entire thing pretty much goes on like that, speaking of signs, warnings, and the end of the world, but without actually saying much with specificity or substance. My guess is that the script is AI-generated as well. I would say the whole thing is silly, except that this channel has over 13,000 subscribers and the video has over 230,000 views.
Most concerning is that some Catholics have been misled by these videos. A friend mentioned that her brother-in-law was sending AI-generated videos to their family's group chat. When it was pointed out to him that the video pages even had clear labels indicating the content was fake, he refused to believe it, insisting, "Why would someone fake such a beautiful sermon?"
Another friend shared with me that his mother told him that she thought the aforementioned AI-generated video about the end times was genuine. Even after he explained it was fake, she responded, "It was still a good message."
I sent a link to the video to a priest friend of mine. He responded that they'd just had a parish talk on the papacy, and at one point a participant stood up and shared a fake Pope Leo prayer they found on social media. My priest friend remarked, "This is going to be a massive problem."
All three of these exchanges happened within a five-hour timespan.
This is exactly the kind of thing I was afraid was going to be a result of this "AI" lying, if they can do it with Pope Leo they can do it with any politician and you can bet that such lies are being manufactured or will soon be, having any Democratic front runner say things and put online that will sink their chances in a close election.
I think of it as being related to the opposition research that American Catholic "trads" with millions and billions were doing and circulating on "liberal" possible Popes at least in the last year or two as we got closer to another conclave. I've seen reports that such a file was kept on Pope Leo while he was still Cardinal Prevost as well as a number of others. One of the Youtubes I saw promoting the absurd idea that they might lie Raymond Burke or Robert Sarah into the papacy may well have been "informed" by such a load of op-research dirt on far less unlikely candidates. Happily, the Cardinal Electors in place right now aren't as gullible as they were in the late 1970s or even early 2000s, though I wouldn't be surprised if, along with watching "Conclave" some of them were seeing what was on Youtube as they went into Conclave. Americans won't be so fortunate in our elections as a extremely dangerous fraction of our voters are extremely vulnerable to "AI" generated lies of this kind, perhaps even more so than the bad actors made up and on a couch at FOX Lies.
America will either make it illegal to make and distribute such stuff or Americans can kiss not only democracy but the possibility of a decent government and society goodbye. Back before "AI" I was pointing out how much actual, Holocaust denying, Hitler revering neo-Nazi propaganda there was on Youtube and that when I called it to "youtube's" attention, they didn't see anything wrong with posting it even though it clearly violated their posted guidelines. That was back when I had some confidence it was some low-paid idiot young person who had something to do with that level of "content moderation," Now I suspect they may give that task to a badly programmed "AI" system.
We have to face the fatal problem that the late 18th century concept of "free press" and "free speech" is in the 21st Century and find a way to make the freedom to tell the truth compatible with protecting democracy and a decent life from lies and hate speech. I will point out that the hate speech and lies we face now WERE TOLD ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE, NATIVE AMERICANS, LATINOS, CATHOLICS, ITALIANS, FRENCH CANADIANS, WOMEN, AND MANY OTHER SEGMENTS OF THE AMERICAN POPULATION and lots of People were killed, enslaved, oppressed by that "free speech" and "free press," only the slogans of the First Amendment drowned out that glaring truth. Now, in the 21st century, it's not only Women and members of hated and oppressed minority groups who are targeted by Democrats of any nationality and "liberals" and now judges and "justices" who don't have the means to have a protective team mitigating the dangers.
Hate speech and lies are, in fact, the determining factor in our elected politics and, now, the very law of the land in the hands of the Roberts Court - the majority of them put in power exactly by the kind of media campaign that I mentioned the very same American billionaires and millionaires put in place to try to get a Raymond Burke or Robert Sarah the papacy. It's no wonder they thought they could do it in the election of a pope, they've succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in destroying America's once aspiring democracy.
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