WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Donald Trump is known to use social media to energize his base and at times, to mock political rivals. In his second term, media and marketing experts said the President understands how to market his messages but another expert is concerned that some of the images the President is using may be misleading.
After President Trump announced he is changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in August, he shared AI generated images on his social media feed to show the name change. This is just one example of how the President uses AI imagery and videos to get his message across.
Marketing and communications experts said whether you like him or not, the President has a good pulse on what gets people engaged and uses that in his social media.
“The memeification of communication in politics and business across the board has not slowed down,” said Shama Hyder, professor with the Link School of Business. “AI has only taken that up a notch, so you think about: why do memes work? You take AI out of it whether its generated or computer generated or not it’s the same idea. It gives people something to share; it gives them a way to validate their world view. And to be able to take sometimes complex issues and really distill them, whether for better or worse, distill them in a way that allows the common person to be able to share them.”
“It is not whether it is generated by AI or whether Natalie Harp sketches it herself, that’s not the point,” said Dr. A. K. Pradeep, CEO of Sensory.Ai, which embeds consumer neuroscience, AI, data and software into explainable business decision systems. “President Trump is an extraordinary marketeer and he uses; he fires the limbic system of the brain every time he speaks or tweets or posts imagery. It’s the amygdala that fires. What fires the amygdala is fear, anger, pain, sadness and disgust. These are the five critical triggers that fire the amygdala and President Trump every time he speaks, he triggers the amygdala, right? So, he’s a consummate politician and he’s the only politician I know that systematically leverages and deploys neuroscience every time he interacts. The AI imagery is just one reflection of that. One channel.”
Kaivan Shroff, a politics and culture commentator and media analyst said there are misinformation concerns about some of the President’s AI imagery use.
“It’s very different to show an image of himself with George Washington which pretty much everyone knows is fake and kind of consistent with his efforts to paint himself as a historic, consequential American president in which he would tweet out and here is the AI version, or whatever you say,” said Shroff. “But when it’s recreating what can be a real-time news event and then you have news agencies running around which I believe happened following this to confirm: was there an actual strike? Was there an actual real attack? And they don’t know and the President of the United States is the one putting it out there, that’s extremely concerning.”
We asked the White House why the President uses a lot of AI imagery and any concerns of some misinformation in some of the posts. David Ingle, a spokesman, sent us this statement: “TRUTH Social is the most powerful and popular social media platform in the world because it serves as President Trump’s authentic voice, where he communicates directly with the American people and the world without the biased media taking him out of context.”
