On October 18, 2025, a protest was held across the United States that challenged the way Donald Trump has been acting as president. This was referred to as the “No Kings” protest. Later that evening, President Trump posted a video to his Truth Social account, which depicted an AI-generated Trump flying a military jet over protesters and dropping what appears to be feces out of the jet. The video caused a great deal of conversation on both ends of the political spectrum. As many people are outraged at the response, calling it immature and childlike, others celebrated Trump’s response, finding it humorous and a good response to the protesters. While this video is quite clearly AI-generated to those viewing it, the idea of political figures being AI-generated in videos is one of which to be skeptical.
With AI becoming more and more powerful with each update, it becomes much easier for people to depict political figures saying or doing things that they’ve never said or done. This could subsequently be harmful not only for their campaign but their overall reputation.
Most people at some point have seen an AI-generated video on some form of social media, whether it be TikTok, Instagram, X, or some other social media. For many people, it can be hard to distinguish what is a real video and what is AI-generated, which can lead people to believe that AI-generated content depicting political figures is real, which can affect the way they vote, despite the depiction being something that never occurred. False political information is nothing new in the political landscape, but when it becomes nearly impossible for the naked eye to detect whether something is real or not, it can be much more effective at swaying people’s opinions as opposed to a fake picture or statement from a politician. It is unclear what the next step of AI will be, but the likelihood is that we will most likely see it become stronger and stronger, and subsequently make it even more difficult to distinguish between real and AI-generated content. A big topic of discussion is whether or not certain checks should be put in place in order to prevent people from generating content depicting others, in this case, politicians. While this does sound like a potentially good idea on paper, there is bound to be controversy and potential problems if this rule is put in place. With the current President of the United States creating AI videos himself, it is unlikely that we will see rules like that put in place anytime soon.