Trump, AI and Shark Attacks
Spoof or Fake News?
Film maker Stéphane Martineau made this hilarious video using AI based on a rambling and wacko digression Trump made at a rally on June 9, 2024, in Nevada, U.S.A. Stephane used Trump's voice recording for the basis of their video created using AI.
In a 2011 interview with In Touch Weekly that was published after the details of the alleged encounter between Trump and Daniels were made public in 2018, she recounted his disdain for sharks. As they were sitting in his hotel room, Trump told her he hated sharks and wished they all would die. ( Washington Post, June 11, 2024)
The AI video made using AI began with Trump describing a real-life conversation he had with a boat manufacturer in South Carolina. Click on the photo to view the video.
The transcript of his riff:
"He goes, I say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight, and you're in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery's now underwater, and there's a shark that's approximately 10 yards over there, by the way a lot of architects lately did on this. I watched some guys justifying it today. Well, they weren't really that angry. They bit off the young lady's leg because of the fact that they were they were not hungry, but they misunderstood who she was.
These people are crazy.He said, There's no problem with sharks. They just didn't really understand. A young woman swimming now really got decimated, and other people to a lot of shark attacks, they said, so there's a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards. Or here, do I get electrocuted?
If the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery the boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted, or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?
Because I will tell you, he didn't know the answer. He said, you know, nobody's ever asked me that question. I said, I think it's a good question. I think there's a lot of electric current coming through that water, but you know what I do, if there was a short where you get electrocuted, I'll take electrocution every single time I'm not getting near the shore. So we're going to end that. "
Perhaps Trump is so flattered with his AI alter-ego created by film maker Stéphane Martineau that Trump’s administration “is considering issuing an executive order that would create a policy integrating artificial intelligence into K-12 education, according to a draft circulated by the White House to several federal agencies on Monday and obtained by The Washington Post.” (Washington Post, April 22, 2025)
Gasp. Oh no.
Fake vs Real
In a segment produced by FRANCE 24 titled “Fake or Fake?” a correspondent discusses a viral image of an enormous beached shark in the United States being rescued by local residents. It turns out that this image image was AI-generated. “ A few details are a little off,” she says on air, pointing out that the mis-matched or “inconsistent” shadows of both the shark and spectators standing on the beach prove that the picture is a fake. She also shows where hands of spectators are warped, ”which often happens with ASI generated images.” She cites an interview by USA Today with a shark biologist who says there “are too many gill slits for a great white shark.
After a bit of cyber-gumshoeing, the correspondent speculates that the image began as a satirical Facebook spoof posted by Alex Lex who used Photoshop and whose Instagram account is all about LOL transformations of life around Kitty Hawk. But after going viral almost overnight with 30,000 shares, this “fake” picture transformed to become “real” news.
Instagram images made by Alex Lex
Actually Alex Lex made these images using Photoshop. So it wasn’t AI. Or maybe it was. But you get the main idea. Remember that “telephone” game you played in grade school in which messages are whispered from person to person and then the original and final messages are compared? (Wikipedia) Well, that’s what happened here.
One of the FB comments beneath the image reads, “ There was a story on my local news web site recently (yesterday?) that looked a lot like that shark picture with a different background. Said it was a great white that washed up on Cape Cod that people tried to save. Don't see the story any more.”
Here’s the real story about the beached 15-foot shark that grew faster at Kitty Hawk than Pinocchio’s nose. According to a Richmond CBS affiliate, “It appears the image of the shark came from a photo taken in September 2015 in Cape Cod by Jack Cohen. The photo appeared on boston.com after the 14 foot shark stranded itself on Whitecrest Beach in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.”
Beebe vs Rauschenberg
Most of the readers of this newsletter are probably too young to remember the first big appropriation lawsuit in 1974 of Beebe vs Rauschenberg. Rauschenberg, the artist, and one of my favorites,
“faced a significant copyright battle over his use of photographs in his art, specifically in his "Combines" series, where he incorporated images from various sources including advertisement and commercial photography. A pivotal case was brought by photographer Morton Beebe, who sued Rauschenberg for using his "Mexico Diver" photograph in Rauschenberg's "Pull" piece without permission. Rauschenberg ultimately settled out of court with Beebe, agreeing to credit Beebe's work in future exhibitions of "Pull" and providing Beebe with an edition of the piece. This experience led Rauschenberg to shift to using his own photographs exclusively in his works that involved photography."
Beebe’s action against Rauschenberg joins similarly famous copyright cases including three infringement lawsuits by Patricia Caulfield, Fred Ward and Charles Moore against Andy Warhol in the 1960s — all three were settled out of court.
For Beebe, it was a simple question of fairness and artist’s rights, saying “I considered it a victory for myself and for photographers.”
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