'Misinformation' Prof. Accused of Misinformation in Minnesota Free Speech Case

Justine Brooke Murray | November 25, 2024
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Well whaddya know, our thoughtpolice censoring everyone for “deep fakes” were the ones peddling “deep fakes" all along. 

Jeff Hancock, a so-called “misinformation” expert who teaches at Stanford University, has been charged with using artificial intelligence (AI) to fake a testimony used by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in a free speech case, Fox News reports.

The case involves Christopher Kohls, a satirical conservative YouTuber, challenging the state of Minnesota in court for recently implementing a vague speech code banning the "use of deep fake technology to influence an election."

“Deep fake,” according to the law’s loosely interpreted definition, is "any video recording, motion-picture film, sound recording, electronic image, or photograph, or any technological representation of speech or conduct substantially derivative thereof."

Under this law, anyone who "knows or acts with reckless disregard about whether the item being disseminated is a deep fake" can be jailed up to 90 days and/or forced to pay a fine up to $1,000. As long as some dumb Joe Shmoe out there takes a satirical AI meme you shared literally, you may be sent straight to the gulag!

Hancock, whom Stanford praises as a “well-known researcher “on how people use deception with technology,” sent Ellison a study to aid his defense of this speech code. The Leftist AG then submitted it to the court as some type of hard evidence that the AI memes they’re so triggered by causes harmful behavior.

Related: FCC Commissioner Carr Wants End To Govt-Pushed Social Media Censorship

But in a hilariously hypocritical revelation, Professor Misinformation’s “study” may be an entirely made up “hallucination generated by an AI large language model like ChatGPT,” according to the plaintiffs. 

"The publication exists, but the cited pages belong to unrelated articles," their lawyers argued in a filing obtained by Fox News.

The document alleges "the title of the alleged article, and even a snippet of it, does not appear anywhere on the internet as indexed by Google and Bing, the most commonly-used search engines."

Was it “simply a copy-paste error? It’s not," the filing clarifies, doubling down on the charge that "the article doesn’t exist."

Therefore, the lawyers concluded, Hancock’s fake news article “should be excluded in its entirety because at least some of it is based on fabricated material likely generated by an AI model, which calls into question its conclusory assertions.”

Since both Ellison and Hancock broke their own law, perhaps they should face the same consequences they’ve threatened their subjects with. Right?

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