A deepfake video of President Biden announcing a military draft was created using AI and shared on social media, initially presented without clear labeling as artificial content, spreading false information about U.S. military policy.
In February 2023, a deepfake video was created showing U.S. President Joe Biden purportedly announcing a national draft requiring 20-year-olds to be conscripted for military service due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and an impending Chinese blockade of Taiwan. The AI-generated video was shared on Twitter by far-right commentator Jack Posobiec and the account @ThePatriotOasis, with some initial posts not clearly identifying it as artificial content. In the fabricated video, Biden appears to invoke the Selective Service Act and states that men and women whose 20th birthday falls during 2023 would be selected through a national lottery. The video exhibited typical deepfake characteristics, with Biden standing very still while only his mouth moved. While Posobiec did acknowledge the video was AI-generated later in his broadcast, his initial Twitter post did not include this disclaimer, leading to misleading retweets that quoted the fake Biden statements directly. The video was originally created by @TPostMillenial with proper AI labeling, but subsequent sharing removed this context. No actual military draft was announced by the real President Biden, and such a significant policy change would have been major news across all media outlets.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that inadvertently generate or spread incorrect or deceptive information, which can lead to inaccurate beliefs in users and undermine their autonomy. Humans that make decisions based on false beliefs can experience physical, emotional or material harms
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed
No population impact data reported.