In recent weeks, a parody music video called “Bye, Bye Biden” has been circulating on social media, depicting President Joe Biden in a negative light. The video, which has garnered over 5 million views, shows Biden as senile, portraying him wearing a diaper, taking medication, and engaging in questionable behavior. It also includes references to stolen election conspiracies promoted by former President Donald Trump.
The video was created by a group known as Little Bug, which mimics the style of a real Russian band called Little Big. The actors in the video, who are based in Moscow, appear to have been altered using artificial intelligence technology to resemble Biden, Trump, and the lead singer of Little Big, Ilya Prusikin. According to AI and machine-vision expert Alex Fink, the deepfake technology used in the video is inconsistent, with the facial features of the actors changing throughout.
An analysis conducted by True Media, a nonprofit organization focused on combating deepfakes related to elections, confirmed the presence of AI-generated audio in the video. Additionally, there is a 78 percent confidence that AI technology was used to manipulate the faces of the actors. The rushed nature of the deepfake technology suggests that the video may have been created hastily, using a limited number of iterations of a generative adversarial network.
The video, which was promoted by a Kremlin-affiliated network called Doppelganger, has been widely shared on social media platforms. The campaign behind the video, which began on May 21, involved thousands of posts in multiple languages across nearly 25,000 accounts. The posts were likely generated using generative AI technology, according to researchers from Antibot4Navalny.
Among the accounts sharing the video was Russian Market, run by social media personality Vadim Loskutov, and Tara Reade, who defected to Russia in 2023. The video was altered to evade detection online by making subtle changes at arbitrary points to create multiple unique versions of the video.
As Russia continues to leverage emerging AI technologies to influence global events, a new report from Recorded Future highlights the use of generative AI tools in a campaign linked to the Kremlin. The campaign, known as CopyCop, repurposed content from real news websites with a right-wing bias and published it on a network of fake websites to push pro-Trump narratives.
While the impact of these fake websites remains unclear, experts warn that AI-powered disinformation campaigns are likely to become more prevalent. The CopyCop campaign demonstrates how AI can amplify the spread of false information and establish fake websites as credible sources for targeted content, including deepfakes.
Moving forward, it is essential for individuals to critically evaluate the sources of information they encounter online and be cautious of manipulated media content. As technology continues to evolve, the threat of AI-generated disinformation poses a significant challenge to media literacy and the integrity of online information.
