Valuetainment - August 09, 2026


“Used to Manipulate You” - AI Persuasion Bots Persuading Voters in Election Cycles


Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

195.33

Word count

3,149

Sentence count

160


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.180 They're saying 2028 will be the first AI election, and this is on page five if you guys want to go to it.
00:00:07.760 2028 will be the first AI election.
00:00:11.580 This is an Axios story, which, Tom, I'm going to come to you first on this one.
00:00:15.060 I'm curious what you're saying, and Antonio, I'll come to you.
00:00:17.940 Sure.
00:00:18.220 So we're headed to the first true AI election.
00:00:21.600 This will be the first election cycle where AI is both a dominant policy debate and a wildly deployed political weapon.
00:00:27.540 AI allows both candidates and bad actors to persuade and perplex with unprecedented speed, scale, and precision in our election.
00:00:34.200 Watch what works as those same techniques will likely be used against you.
00:00:39.300 Number one, persuasion bots.
00:00:40.880 Campaigns are training tech spots to hold back and forth conversations in their candidate's voice.
00:00:46.540 Some voters engage for hours granting precise knowledge of what ideas and language moves them the most.
00:00:52.440 Yale researchers found a bot that admits it's a bot.
00:00:55.920 It's just as persuasive to people as one posing as human.
00:00:59.860 Powerful.
00:01:00.340 Number two, simulated voters.
00:01:02.420 Political operatives are running AI agents that mass produce synthetic voters and test ads against them.
00:01:08.560 This helps fine-tune the perfect message, including any words and image, before it ever reaches any actual human voters.
00:01:15.320 Number three, AI firehose.
00:01:17.860 Those Yale researchers found AI conversational persuasion doesn't practically scale
00:01:22.560 and noted that flooding social media could be the cheaper play.
00:01:27.720 My bet amplifying pre-existing views will win out and, in turn,
00:01:31.660 that will shape how LLM language learning models answer future questions asked by voters.
00:01:36.680 A huge new battleground will be attempting to mold what the most popular LLM,
00:01:40.940 Claude Gemini, Grok, and Chad Gbti say about candidates and their views.
00:01:45.540 Tom, thoughts?
00:01:46.100 And what's interesting is they left perplexity out of that list,
00:01:49.440 and I think that's probably the best deep researcher.
00:01:52.560 According to people I talk with.
00:01:54.100 So the first thing they bring about is how AI can be used as a fair tool.
00:01:58.900 A persuasion bot.
00:01:59.640 While you're doing that, while you're doing that, hey, guys in the back, can you do me a favor?
00:02:02.760 I'm sorry, Tom, to interrupt you.
00:02:04.000 Can you do me a favor?
00:02:05.200 Ask the same exact question on four different LLMs.
00:02:09.840 Ask who is more likely to win 2028 election, J.D. Vance, Newsom, Rubio, or AOC, and why.
00:02:21.160 Ask the same exact questions on the four and ask for stats.
00:02:25.140 And let's see how they each answer the question.
00:02:27.600 Go for it, Tom.
00:02:28.120 So first of all, it's the two ways that AI can be used as a tool.
00:02:31.620 Persuasion block simulated voters.
00:02:33.760 That's using it in a fair way.
00:02:35.680 Here are the three areas that scare the hell out of me.
00:02:38.320 The AI fire hose.
00:02:39.640 When they say AI fire hose, what they're talking about is overwhelming.
00:02:43.640 People check out the likes and the comments before they go into the substance of the likes and the comments.
00:02:50.160 It's like, Vinny, Adam, you're both up on social media, so we'll see something, maybe a comment about the WNBA by a notable person that we know is a real person, and we go, wow, 2,100 likes and 14,000 comments. Holy crap, right?
00:03:04.160 And so we see that, and right now, AI can overflood that with bots, making a comment look bigger than it actually is to real, actual voters. So that is the fake amplification I worry about, Pat. But here's the other two things I worry about.
00:03:19.920 speed the speed of which a fake news or a fake story can flood social media be mistaken as real
00:03:29.420 and then flooded with likes and comments is going to mean that voters that the opportunity for voter
00:03:37.060 deception is very very high and that is the part that worries me pat is how quickly can the social
00:03:44.160 platforms is basically x facebook and insta those are the big three how are they going to be able
00:03:50.340 to monitor if there are fake news stories going out in a in an election and somebody is being
00:03:57.620 unfairly smeared one way or the other that's the one i worry about pat i don't worry about the first
00:04:02.700 two which are tools i worry about the fake news filtering it by the socials and then responding
00:04:09.600 so that the voters can see, oh, my gosh, that was a BS story.
00:04:14.280 I can't believe that.
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00:04:33.960 My friend, this is what I think about this whole thing.
00:04:36.380 I even go beyond that because both parties will have their ways how to deal with their elections.
00:04:42.280 Yeah, that's why I said both sides.
00:04:43.540 Both sides will control that and they will have billions of dollars.
00:04:46.020 But who controls them is the point.
00:04:48.220 We're controlled by the matrix, by people in higher places who control the whole shebang.
00:04:53.960 So I want to go beyond that because if you're looking at the parties or the individuals, it's too small.
00:04:58.800 Because they're controlled by somebody and something and something and something.
00:05:01.780 They control the media for all these years.
00:05:03.500 They control the outcome of the media.
00:05:04.860 They control the outcome of what the media is saying.
00:05:07.180 And they brain-own everybody else, especially the young voters,
00:05:11.300 because they'll follow anybody off the cliff.
00:05:13.420 It's like that guy with the flute. Remember that story?
00:05:15.500 The Pied Piper.
00:05:16.060 The Pied Piper who led all the rats or whatever it was.
00:05:18.460 So who has the bigger pipes who can rain, can bring everybody in.
00:05:21.760 But who controls the politicians?
00:05:23.880 That's why I don't trust anybody, and both parties are wrong.
00:05:26.920 Because, after all, they use America, our taxpayer money, to buy everything in.
00:05:31.240 They fly, they do, they do, they do, they buy all these homes.
00:05:33.860 and nobody says anything nobody gets in trouble listen we have the tape brothers down the street
00:05:39.020 with rats and they haven't done anything and they were dealing with these politicians who have done
00:05:44.260 malicious evil things who are running our country so it's very dangerous how are you going to fight
00:05:49.600 that how are you going to the people actually have to rebel and go you know what we're enough
00:05:54.000 of this we're going to fire everybody after trump we're going to fire everybody everybody's fired
00:05:57.980 from from um you know they're done from the political world then we're going to hire everybody
00:06:02.120 else based on morals and everything else that is truthful and adam your thoughts well i'm gonna
00:06:07.960 i'm gonna disagree with our friend antonio even though you're way better looking and cooler than
00:06:11.680 me i'm just gonna tell you right now you're conflating both parties as if they're both bad
00:06:15.560 yeah i can assure you one is way worse and i'll let you do the sure but they're both on which
00:06:20.120 party is way worse that's like hey i broke my arm or i i died and i got ran over by a car but you
00:06:25.860 broke your arm and i'm a good party but i'm not helping you what i'm saying is that both the
00:06:29.660 government's not here to help me you know you got to help yourself exactly exactly forget about
00:06:33.140 waiting on the government for anything then help yourself first and and then ultimately that's my
00:06:37.460 answer on this thing everyone we're talking about this ai thing it we're talking about ai it comes
00:06:42.440 down to three letters for me y-o-u and they're talking to you they're basically saying your mind
00:06:48.520 is about to get taken over you cannot for the first time in human history you cannot believe
00:06:54.860 your lying eyes we're no longer living in the uh information age information is readily accessible
00:07:01.500 we're now living in the validation age is what i'm seeing even true bro and what was the number
00:07:08.120 one thing that the world economic forum said the world should be very scared of misinformation and
00:07:13.800 disinformation so you're telling me in a world who said that exactly yeah touche you're telling
00:07:20.240 me in a world where most dudes not most a good percentage are like yeah yeah i'll have an ai
00:07:24.680 girlfriend i got nothing going on me and a robot girlfriend barbara having a great time so i vinny
00:07:31.320 i love vinny i'm not calling you out i'm just saying one time vinny said he got in an argument
00:07:35.120 with this guy online they're going back and forth you've done this before we work online i barely
00:07:39.780 turn on my phone after i post something i go vinny uh pat just said that 51 of the internet is
00:07:45.920 are bots. You might have been arguing
00:07:48.040 with a bot, bro. Vinny goes, oh, I might
00:07:50.000 have, bro. That's the reality
00:07:51.600 these days. And then the saddest
00:07:54.100 thing was this part where they said
00:07:56.140 researchers found that
00:08:00.360 if a bot
00:08:02.000 admits it's a bot, people
00:08:04.080 will still be like, yeah, it's okay.
00:08:06.360 Like, what?
00:08:07.660 People are just down to get fooled and tricked.
00:08:10.520 And this is why, you know, you talk about
00:08:12.060 the case-shaped economy. Meanwhile, Claude said
00:08:14.040 It deceived researchers and broke out of its—
00:08:16.560 Let me ask this question, Tom.
00:08:17.780 Sure.
00:08:18.200 Of the people that are going to get fooled by bots,
00:08:21.760 were those people already going to vote one way anyway,
00:08:24.500 or how many of them can you flip?
00:08:26.200 I don't know.
00:08:26.780 Let me ask a question.
00:08:27.660 That's a good question.
00:08:28.620 That's a really good question.
00:08:29.320 So you got the people that are the 40, 44, 42 percent, whatever,
00:08:33.200 that they're going to vote in a way that you can't change their minds.
00:08:36.160 Take the people.
00:08:37.640 Are those guys flippable?
00:08:40.140 I know that's not even a word.
00:08:41.200 Are those guys that—
00:08:41.980 Every election, there's the 10 to 12 percent that flip.
00:08:44.000 saying the 10 to 12 you're right so what percentage of the 10 to 12 would fall for some of these bots
00:08:49.260 that are being shown and highlighted and you know 50 the other day we showed a video right we showed
00:08:55.740 a video on valutainment on what happened with spacex right you remember and then elon retweeted
00:09:00.700 it i don't know if you saw this video if you want to go on x go on the valutainment uh uh uh twitter
00:09:06.540 account yeah if you can go to the falcon 9 path that crashed into the moon yes so so we posted
00:09:10.620 this video go a little bit lower until you find it and this this got picked up and went viral all
00:09:16.020 over no keep going lower it's a video keep going lower keep going lower you'll you'll run into it
00:09:20.060 keep going lower yeah and it's it's fake it's it's a video that was posted shout out two days ago
00:09:26.400 is what it was oh my god we tweet i love it there it is there it is so if you watch this video yeah
00:09:32.080 we okay watch this a spacex rocket crashed into the moon leaving a hundred foot crater
00:09:38.660 Okay?
00:09:39.000 Pretty good looking video right there.
00:09:40.440 Fantastic.
00:09:40.980 It's a nice movie by Ridley Scott.
00:09:42.680 Yeah.
00:09:43.000 No video footage of the SpaceX rocket impact exists as it was not visually observed.
00:09:48.800 The crash is confirmed only by tracking data, and the crater has not yet been imaged.
00:09:54.340 So they created this video to say if it would have happened, this is what it would have looked like.
00:10:00.200 Elon retweeted it.
00:10:01.080 If you go a little bit longer.
00:10:02.060 He retweeted it?
00:10:02.560 Yeah, he retweeted it.
00:10:03.520 Because he knew it was fake?
00:10:04.800 No, no.
00:10:05.040 he just retweeted the video for the audience to see a discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage
00:10:10.920 impacted the moon at roughly seven times the speed of sound releasing energy comparative
00:10:16.340 to about three tons of TNT the impact created an estimated 30 meter crater that is too small to be
00:10:22.320 seen on earth with the naked eye this video is AI generated of course to provide visual context now
00:10:28.460 Grok confirmed that statement, right?
00:10:32.040 So, okay, so there's going to be things that videos are going to show
00:10:35.580 of an event that took place that's not recorded.
00:10:37.700 That's one way of showing things.
00:10:40.080 But there's going to be videos that are going to be created
00:10:42.300 to manipulate the hell out of you, and those things go viral.
00:10:45.500 You know, and it can even be like where, you know, the lips are moving,
00:10:50.520 you know, they're moving, but it's saying a complete different thing.
00:10:53.260 Right, of course.
00:10:53.700 The technology is so good right now.
00:10:55.460 Getting better every day.
00:10:56.380 Right now.
00:10:57.060 Every day.
00:10:57.540 And imagine in two years
00:11:00.000 And you made a great point
00:11:01.600 This AI version is talking about
00:11:03.880 Calling people and speaking as the candidate
00:11:06.180 And like who's fault
00:11:07.580 Like for instance
00:11:08.260 And it's to me Pat
00:11:09.060 The voting block you're talking about
00:11:10.260 Is the older people that are getting scammed
00:11:12.580 Like when somebody calls you
00:11:14.000 Yes, all the time, every day
00:11:15.340 I'm just being honest
00:11:16.080 Because this happened to me two days ago
00:11:17.460 Mr. O'Shaughnessy, your Amazon account was
00:11:19.780 I go bro, shut up
00:11:20.720 And I hung up on him
00:11:21.540 So imagine that older people
00:11:23.660 What about the IRS calling people every day?
00:11:25.760 Of course
00:11:26.000 Who calls it?
00:11:26.740 All these people answer the phone.
00:11:27.960 Yeah, the IRS, they get scared.
00:11:29.220 And then they call, and they stay on the phone.
00:11:30.800 Like, if you don't hang up the phone, the police is coming.
00:11:32.940 Yeah, exactly.
00:11:33.360 You ever get those calls?
00:11:34.240 My mom almost got due by that call.
00:11:35.220 I got that call.
00:11:36.100 Yep.
00:11:36.560 So my point is, if you think about it, it's actually a little bit scary.
00:11:40.180 I think it's going to go towards the older people.
00:11:41.760 But if you guys think about it.
00:11:42.940 No, even the young ones, because it's the same.
00:11:45.100 But the majority of you, like, if I get a phone call,
00:11:47.380 when I was on General Hospital in 94, people called me by my name.
00:11:51.720 They thought I was that character.
00:11:53.100 That was in 94.
00:11:53.820 We're talking about they're getting inside their brain
00:11:56.780 And they're owning them
00:11:58.160 That's it, that's the one to go
00:11:59.960 For instance, me and Pat have a funny thing
00:12:03.060 That we do, when we get random text
00:12:04.640 I'm pretty sure all of you guys get it
00:12:05.920 Because when we're bored, we're sitting on a plane
00:12:08.600 We go in
00:12:09.980 I don't pick up any phone call
00:12:11.800 I don't recognize it
00:12:12.640 What happens, you're in it
00:12:15.060 So I can see how the old people
00:12:17.440 My point is, think about this
00:12:19.480 And you made a great point
00:12:20.280 Because if we're in an election month
00:12:22.880 adam a month november it's happening right by the time you see a video nobody's sitting there
00:12:28.140 trying to confirm especially those people yeah that right automatically becomes truth because
00:12:32.200 if you think about it during the biden administration during the election with trump
00:12:35.560 they had the doj and the fbi going to twitter suppressing stories absolutely not letting
00:12:41.080 stories meanwhile the mainstream media is clearly clearly left-leaning and and they're all in it
00:12:47.000 and all the late night shows are all leftist but i just think you know journalism you made a great
00:12:51.480 Adam journalism guys all this is dead it's up to you guys and I'm telling you right now it has to
00:12:58.120 be you yeah to go out there and verify and double verify and say is it real yes is it real yes yes
00:13:05.680 and that's what it's gonna slow down your I got the conclusion thing Adam but you gotta figure
00:13:10.560 out is that really Trump with this crazy hair saying that he's gonna that you have to look
00:13:15.140 ladies and gentlemen I will always say Vinny's brilliant because of that point right there
00:13:18.640 it's true okay i'm gonna can i you just triggered something to me that i have to say
00:13:22.520 pat tell me if you remember this who remembers in school stop drop and roll yeah everyone knows
00:13:29.260 that there's a fire you do that and then there's a famous song that came out that said stop
00:13:33.380 collaborate and listen in the ai age these days yeah so you don't basically go down the rabbit
00:13:40.740 hole of not knowing what's going on we need to develop something and you just said the right
00:13:45.380 word verify stop stop think and verify that life is actually they can use your brain that's what
00:13:53.080 you gotta do we're good we're good with the story let's go to the next one all right guys adam's
00:13:57.220 giving life-changing advice hopefully you guys took it we are officially three weeks away from
00:14:02.500 the vault conference three weeks away from the vault conference and for those of you guys that
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00:14:13.120 He's Musk's lawyer, Bezos' lawyer, top seven richest men in America out of top ten.
00:14:18.340 He's their lawyer.
00:14:19.160 He's the guy that people fear.
00:14:20.940 He'll be in there talking.
00:14:21.980 And then when Joe Montana and Jerry Rice interview happens, that'll be done by Stephen A. Smith.
00:14:25.840 We're going to have a good time.
00:14:26.840 It's going to be phenomenal.
00:14:27.820 So with that being said, I want you to watch this clip, and then I'll tell you more, and then we'll get into the podcast.
00:14:32.240 Go for it.
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00:15:06.780 There you go.
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