Sturgill, associate professor of journalism, and Rainie, director of the Imagining the Digital Future Center, gave their perspective on a new deepfake video that shows AI versions of celebrities responding to antisemitism.
Amanda Sturgill, Elon University associate professor of journalism, and Lee Rainie, director of Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center, were recently quoted in The Huffington Post about a viral video depicting celebrities, using artificial intelligence.
The video features AI depictions of Jewish celebrities, each of them wearing t-shirts with the star of David and a middle finger gesture, along with the name “Kanye” in response to rapper Kanye West selling swastika t-shirts on his website. None of the celebrities depicted in the video, including Jerry Seinfeld and Scarlett Johansson, permitted their likeness to be used. The video has been “liked” more than 8,000 times.
“I think all the ‘likes’ suggests this is a really emotional issue for audiences,” Sturgill told HuffPost. “It’s the kind of thing that people would want to believe is real, and that has a way of
short-circuiting one’s usual shenanigan detection abilities.”
Sturgill’s research focuses on the intersection of education and community-based work, the relationship of religion and media and on new technologies and the news.
The Huffington Post referenced Elon’s “AI & Politics” survey, released in May 2024 which noted that 45% of American adults say they’re not confident that they can detect fake photos.
“I’d bet a share of them saw some kind of content about antisemitism and supported it, whether it was real or a deepfake,” Rainie told HuffPost.
“A video like this is a social and political happening as much as it is a media literacy issue.”