AI Mark Robinson Is Coming to a Television Near You

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Good morning, readers.

Good morning, readers. 

What has 14 fingers, a $1 million price tag, and a high likelihood of appearing in my nightmares for the next month? 

There can only be one answer to that: AI-generated Mark Robinson. 

Yesterday, Raleigh millionaire Todd Stiefel’s satire Americans for Prosparody PAC dropped a new TV and internet ad featuring an AI-generated visual of Robinson saying a mix of real and exaggerated quotes from his past.

In the costly ad buy, AI Robinson poses in front of an Illuminati conspiracy theory board, touts the “common sense ideas” that “climate change is a hoax just like 9/11 and Pearl Harbor,” and says “wicked people need to be killed” while severed heads briefly rain from the top of the screen. 

“I’m AI Mark Robinson reminding you these are all things the real Mark Robinson has said and done,” the figure concludes. 

It’s certainly the most bizarre political ad North Carolina has ever seen, topping even Stiefel’s last campaign which had Robinson’s face and voice on a mobile billboard.

While the ad was created before the latest news about Robinson’s foul comments on a porn site came to light (“I’m a black NAZI!” among others), Stiefel says that he hopes the ad will draw attention to even more of the problematic things Robinson has said.

Ethically, the ad brings North Carolina politics into uncharted territory. There are no federal laws on the use of AI in elections but at least 26 states, including North Carolina, have passed or are considering laws that would regulate how the technology can be used in politics. 

Check out our full story here. And have a good Wednesday.

—Chase 

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