Navigating Reality and War During the Age of AI Propaganda

About this episode

The episode discusses the impact of AI-generated propaganda on the perception of truth, particularly in the context of Iranian dissidents and political narratives.

On the morning of April 21, Trump posted an image of eight women on Truth Social, claimed they were Iranian dissidents set to be executed, and demanded that Tehran release them. Detractors, and several Iranian sources , claimed the women were AI-generated. A day later Trump claimed the women would no longer be executed and that he’d saved them. The truth is that the women are real and many are still in danger. Trump’s post made real Iranian women who protested the Iranian regime appear fake. The story speaks to a moment we’re in where it’s become impossible to parse truth from lies online. This was already difficult before AI-generated pictures and video. Now it feels impossible. On this episode of Angry Planet, Mahsa Alimardani is here to tell us the story. Alimardani is the Associate Director of Technology Threats and Opportunities at WITNESS. Eight real women turned into AI propaganda Real crimes bastardized into regime propaganda “We need to come to terms with the fact that our information environment is structurally different.” Content Credentials as a partial solution How AI is supercharging our chosen reality tunnels The cycle of uprising and repression in Iran The…

People in this episode

Hosts: Matthew Gault, Jason Fields

Guest: Mahsa Alimardani

Topics covered

• AI propaganda
• Iranian dissidents
• information environment
• truth and lies online
• politics and fandom
• internet censorship

Keywords

• AI-generated images
• Iranian regime
• propaganda
• information warfare
• social media
• political manipulation
• truth
• censorship

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: WITNESS

Places: Iran, Tehran

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