On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared an AI-generated image of a nuclear explosion over Tel Aviv, a mushroom cloud rising over a burning city, two days before Israel's election. It accompanied a post by activist Yuval Bloomberg warning of an existential threat from Iran, and according to the Times of Israel it was framed as a warning of a second Holocaust if Netanyahu is not re-elected. The post's central message was that if the Iranians acquire nuclear weapons, nothing else will matter anymore.
The Contradiction Department
Netanyahu has said repeatedly that Israeli and American strikes devastated Iran's nuclear program, and that Tehran can no longer threaten Israel's existence. The post rests on the opposite premise. A campaign can, apparently, run on both: the program is destroyed, and also it is about to flatten Tel Aviv, depending on which graphic is on hand. Even now, one admires the efficiency of a message that needs no consistency to travel.
The Reviews Are In
Gadi Eisenkot, the opposition frontrunner, responded with a verdict: Netanyahu, you're hysterical, the same method of lies and scare tactics. Channel 12 reported that White House officials were concerned the post could lead Iranian officials to miscalculate, which in the middle of an ongoing conflict is not a theoretical category of error. Rarely does a social media graphic require a diplomatic assessment. Rarely does a graphic depict a capital city on fire.
Cheap Apocalypse
Photorealistic catastrophe once required a budget, a studio and a conscience. It now requires a prompt. The Machine has democratized the end of the world, and, as sources confirm, the first people to exploit it at scale are the ones with the largest audiences and the least time to wait. The image is not alleged to be real, and it is not claimed to be real. It is simply designed to be remembered when a person walks into a voting booth, which is the function of most campaign material and the reason it is regulated in most places.
And yet, as if this were not enough, the same technology that makes the image possible makes every real image deniable, dear reader, which is a price paid by everyone and invoiced to no one. One presumes the Campaign Consulting Community has already budgeted for the sequel.
Sources: The Times of Israel — PM posts AI image of nuke hitting Tel Aviv, warns of '2nd Holocaust' if he's not elected · i24NEWS — 'Israel is in existential danger,' Netanyahu shares AI image of nuclear blast over Tel Aviv ahead of elections
