Not in My Own Words, But in AI’s

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.

This content was recorded by Victor Davis Hanson prior to his Dec. 30 medical operation.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’d like to talk about a different topic, if I could. It’s this new phenomenon of artificial intelligence using a person’s face or body, using a person’s voice, using a person’s background setting, and then putting in their mouths a different message that they never said, and they not necessarily would agree, and in fact, often would disagree.

And it’s kind of an intellectual, not kind of, but is an intellectual theft. It’s like plagiarism or copyright violations.

And I speak from personal anguish because there’s about six VDH channels out there where it looks—it is me and my face. It is this setting that I’m in right now, the same bookcases, same clothes, somewhat same voices, but the lips don’t quite sync, and every single thing that comes outta my mouth is something I’ve never said. I’ve never attacked Vice President JD Vance. I’ve never used the F-word in public. I don’t criticize people in the way that these videos suggest.

So, what’s wrong with what’s going on?

The first of it is, of course, it’s theft. It’s dishonest. And the people who generate this—and we don’t know really who they are. Are they people on the left? Are they foreigners? Are they just entrepreneurial people who wanna make a quick buck without any investment?

But the problem is it is theft. And you know it’s theft because if they have these ideas that they wanna promulgate, it’s a free country, why don’t they just go out and sit here like I’m talking to you and give their ideas? But instead, they’re parasitical. They want to use somebody who may have a higher profile than themselves and use their investment and steal it. That is their exposure.

The second thing they’re doing is they’re greedy. If you look at these, in my case, these VDH fake channels and fake videos—and I should ask that every single video, with one exception, the Ultra on my own website, comes from The Daily Signal. From four to five weekly, five- to six-minute videos, and four hour to an hour-and-a-half podcasts, all of them have to originate with The Daily Signal. That’s one way you know the difference.

But what they’re doing is they have huge audiences, 40,000, 50,000, 60,000, 100,000 people, and they have subscribers, and they have a big budget. So, our audience really has been fragmented to genuine people, like you who are listening, and people who think that it’s me, but they are helping profit a pirate, a thief.

The other thing about—not only are these people greedy and not only are they unlawful and amoral, but they also put ideas into my head that I would never say myself. So, they’re using—it would be one thing to say that they’re trying to amplify, like, what Victor says with maybe a cleaner presentation that’s computer-simulated or aided or adjusted, but they’re not. They’re putting their ideas. And I can tell you a lot of them I don’t agree with.

The other thing is, and this is really dishonest, for one microsecond, they flash on this little legal disclaimer that says under no circumstances are you to believe that this is the real Victor Hanson or Victor Hanson’s face or his views. We are using a technology that puts our idea—and then they make it disappear.

If they really believe that, they really believe they wanted to distinguish their videos that are fake from ours that are genuine, then they would leave that up in the corner. But they don’t. They’re just doing that because they think it gives them some legal pretension and that they can fall back and say, well, we warn people legally, and then you can’t sue them.

The other thing is they try to exploit our video. So, they will put headlines with the F-U-word, the F-bomb, and they’ll put it as the headline. Or they’ll say Hanson attacks JD Vance or Hanson does this when we don’t do that. We don’t try to get clicks by being controversial. We try to get audiences by trying to inform them and bring history, politics, sociology, literature, all within a unique package for the erudition and entertainment of our audience.

The final thing is there’s no laws against us that I can tell. I’ve had legal counsel and they’re doing their best, but X won’t take them down. And YouTube argues and Google argues. So, apparently, the Silicon Valley brotherhood feels that these people who must have learned their skills out of that nexus, they’re not doing anything wrong. They’re just taking a product.

And it’s very, it’s very ironic because, you know, all of these people have copyrights on their technologies how to do this, if Victor all of a sudden takes their technology and steals it and uses it to simulate something and doesn’t pay a fee for using it, I would be sued in a second. So, it’s very hypocritical. All of their things that they use are copyrighted or patent, but not the ideas that they steal, they apparently think.

And so, until we get some legal action to stop these people who are very greedy and making a lot of money, I don’t know what else to tell you, other than caveat emptor, buyer beware, and always look for a Daily Signal imprint.

And a final, I don’t know who they are. I do not know who they are. I do not know if they’re leftists that are trying to confuse the conservative movement. I don’t know if they’re Chinese or Russian hackers who may be angry at things we’ve said. I don’t know if they’re apolitical and they just wanna make a buck. But whoever they are, they’re doing things that are bad and wrong, and they should be stopped.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

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