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Happy Tuesday, all! Here's your Tuesday Tech Drop, the top news at the intersection of tech and politics from the past week.
Trump’s fake Black backers
The BBC is out with a new report this week on Trump supporters who’ve been using artificial intelligence to generate images of Trump appearing friendly with nonexistent Black people. Despite Trump’s history of demonstrable racism (consider his "poisoning the blood of our country" rhetoric, just to pick a recent example), he and his supporters have been trying to play up his support among Black people. That it has come to making fake pictures to convey that message seems pretty pitiful. The BBC spoke with a white, conservative radio host named Mark Kaye who created one of the images. He explained, “I’m not out there taking pictures of what’s really happening. I’m a storyteller.”
Here's the image Kaye and his team created:
The story Kaye and others like him appear to be telling through these dubious images is of a man beloved by Black people, despite his long list of overtly anti-Black acts. I’m pretty confident these fake images won’t work to sway Black voters. Trump has been pictured with various (actual, living) Black folks over the years and that doesn’t appear to have helped him win Black voters by any large measure. But this is just the latest, troubling example of artificial intelligence being deployed in a way that seems designed to dupe people.
Read more at the BBC.
Here are some other stories I've been following:
A new app-roach
Get to know Superfeed, the organization run by Tyler Bowyer, an executive with the right-wing group Turning Point USA. The group has a new app it's trying to sell the Republican Party. NBC News previously reported that some in the GOP see the app, which has been pitched as a tool for canvassing and campaign organizing, as a way for TPUSA — in the words of one anonymous RNC member — "to hoodwink people to build their data operation." The Daily Beast has a new report on the app’s financial ties to Arizona GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake, and the Beast's report highlights the treasure trove of data that Superfeed's developers may be able to retrieve from users, including addresses and cellphone usage.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
Tesla troubles
A judge on Wednesday ruled that several thousand Black employees at Tesla can file a class-action lawsuit against the Elon Musk-owned company over allegations that it failed to address widespread racial discrimination and harassment at its plant in Fremont, California. The move opens Tesla up to a potentially multimillion dollar lawsuit. Tesla is currently facing lawsuits over similar allegations brought by two state agencies in California and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; in a 2022 response to one of the California suits, Tesla has said that it “strongly” opposes discrimination and has called the accusations of widespread racism part of a “narrative” spun by lawyers.
Read more at TIME.
Leak problems
The U.S. intelligence community was springing leaks in all sorts of places.
Jack Texeira, the airman who leaked secret details on Discord about the ongoing war in Ukraine, pleaded guilty and accepted a sentence of around 16 years, according to The New York Times. His sentence was handed down the same day that David Slater, another man who served in the Air Force, was charged with leaking national defense information over a foreign dating website, NBC News reports.
Read more at The New York Times.
Dems learning to love A.I. in politics
Even as experts warn about the potentially malicious uses of artificial intelligence in political advertising, Democrats and their allies are plotting what they believe to be ethical ways to use the technology in politics. NBC News recently published an article on "Tech for Campaigns," an organization that's helping Democrats create "AI-aided" campaign materials, like chatbot-generated emails or campaign signs made with generative A.I. tools, which a co-founder of the group said are ultimately reviewed and edited by real people. Tech for Campaigns believes these tools will help campaigns' productivity by coming up with new ideas for slogans and other campaign staples.
Read more at NBC News.
FCC chair says U.S. law on domestic abuse should cover car technology
The chair of the Federal Communications Commission is calling for more regulations to prevent domestic abusers from taking advantage of smart cars' features — like tools that let one to surveil or control parts of the car remotely — to target and harass their victims.
Watch this NBC News Now segment on the proposals.
"California Forever" may have to wait until later
The backers behind “California Forever,” a secretive plot by rich Californians to establish a new “city” with land they purchased, seem to have fallen behind in its effort to gain the signatures to put the proposal on the ballot this November.
Read more about the campaign’s struggles at the Associated Press.