Hi, itâs Davey in New York. While Elon Musk says he was playing for laughs when he circulated a deepfake of a campaign ad for Vice President [View in browser](
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Hi, itâs Davey in New York. While Elon Musk says he was playing for laughs when he circulated a deepfake of a campaign ad for Vice President Kamala Harris, misinformation experts say thereâs a serious issue being missed. But first... Three things you need to know today: ⢠Meta shares jump on the companyâs strong ad growth [bolstered by AI](
⢠Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang adds nearly $12 billion to his fortune in the [chipmakerâs rally](
⢠NBC is betting on social media influencers to [boost Olympics coverage]( The humor defense In the past week, [Elon Musk caused a stir]( on X â again. The billionaire owner of the platform shared an AI âparodyâ of a Kamala Harris campaign ad, featuring a voice similar to the presumptive Democratic nominee, describing herself as the âultimate diversity hireâ and âa deep state puppet.â The narration was clearly generated by artificial intelligence, but Musk didnât disclose this, triggering a wave of backlash. It took Musk another three days to say anything else on the matter, time that could have been used for earnest reflection on the proliferation of AI tools that has caused the mainstreaming of synthetic media to happen at lightning speed. Instead, Musk resurfaced with a crude joke referencing an internet meme about male genitals. The attention span on Muskâs action may have been short-lived, but the way he behaves online â as a major social media influencer who can point his more than 192 million followers at an idea just by posting it â still matters. If only it was more surprising. As my colleagues at Bloomberg have reported, [this is just how Musk typically reacts](. On the fifth day of the billionaireâs takeover of Twitter, he composed a post in front of his lieutenants: âIf I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if Trump is coming back on this platform, Twitter would be minting money!â As soon as one ad exec strenuously objected, Musk laughed and posted the tweet anyway â then fired the dissenter soon after. âHumorâ and âparodyâ have long been the defenses he has mounted in the face of criticism. âCommon sense would suggest that individuals with the greatest influence online should be held to higher standards of platform policy compliance and basic human decency,â [Nora Benavidez]( the senior counsel at Free Press, a digital civil rights group, told me when I asked for her thoughts on the affair. âBut having bought his own platform, Musk thinks he can bend the rules and basic decency however he wishes.â The incident could have been washed away in a news cycle saturated with so many other topics worthy of focus â who Harrisâ VP pick will be, Donald Trumpâs questioning of her racial identity, the Olympics! â but itâs noteworthy as the public wades through which influential personâs views to take seriously and how to parse them in the midst of a presidential campaign. âHumor,â said [Laura Edelson]( an expert on online misinformation with Northeastern University, âis how fringe ideas get normalized. It allows people who want to do things that are outside the normal boundaries of society to deflect criticism.â Muskâs actions show he isnât thinking about the overall health of the information ecosystem, she said. âHeâs a partisan actor â which heâs allowed to be â who wants to score political points and doesnât care as much about how he does that,â Edelson wrote in an email. And itâs true that Musk knows his audience and knows that his persona on X gets engagement â you canât argue with the 245,000 retweets and over 133 million views on his original post. For [Emerson Brooking]( a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who studies online networks, Musk's stewardship of X has already harmed the state of US online discourse. âHe may now meaningfully influence the outcome of an election where he is actively promoting one candidate and sharing false content about another,â Brooking said in an interview. âBut there's no real plan here. In many ways, that makes it sadder.â What has been sidelined by the episode is a considered discussion of whether the [use of deepfakes in politics]( is acceptable. Instead, Muskâs antics get the attention. âWe donât have bipartisan agreement on deepfakes,â Edelson said. âThis is an unstable equilibrium. If we canât come to an agreement that neither side will use these tactics, eventually both sides will.ââ[Davey Alba](mailto:malba13@bloomberg.net) Please note: Our email domain is changing, which means you'll be receiving this newsletter from noreply@news.bloomberg.com. Update your contacts to ensure you continue receiving it -- check out the bottom of this email for more details. The big story Google is cracking down on deepfake porn [in search results](. When AI-generated adult content features a real person without their permission, that person can request its removal from search results. Now, when Google decides a takedown is warranted, it will filter all explicit results on similar searches and remove duplicate images. The company also said it has improved its search ranking systems so that explicit fake content wonât appear in top results. One to watch
[Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lisa Su is interviewed on Bloomberg Television about the companyâs quarterly results and the outlook for sales of its artificial intelligence chips.Â]( Get fully charged The US may restrict Chinaâs access to AI memory chips in the latest escalation in the Biden administrationâs effort to curtail the export of [advanced technology](. Arm shares tumble after the CEO reported the chip designer has seen signs of [market weaknesses](. Qualcomm gives a bullish revenue forecast, suggesting a smartphone [rebound is ahead](. More from Bloomberg Get Bloomberg Tech weeklies in your inbox: - [Cyber Bulletin]( for coverage of the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage
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