I’m just pinning this here.
If you’re in my profile because I've offended you, ask yourself if what I said would have offended your sweet mother 10-20 years ago.
If yes, then I'm sorry.
If no, then... (well um, I'd better not say, it would offend my dear mother.)
@Fushnicken47981@GuntherEagleman@ScottJenningsKY He may not even know he'd been fooled. AI can easily do context-appropriate responses in real-time. And synthesizing McConnell's voice is child's play.
We need LIVE VIDEO with a couple trustworthy persons. Maybe Trump and team could offer to drop by for a visit–and be rejected.
I spoke to my old friend Mitch McConnell this afternoon, the senior Senator from Kentucky.
He told me he wants to change his vote and PASS the SAVE AMERICA ACT.
He also said @LeaderJohnThune is a punk and should be replaced.
@RepThomasMassie With due respect @RepThomasMassie, you're well aware of how easy it is to converse with AI in real-time, and to synthesize someone's voice, especially over the phone.
Please push for a proof-of-life in-person video visit. You, the President, or someone UNopposed to the SAVE Act
@rebelistamodern@RepThomasMassie It's not hard to believe they're conversing with AI which is synthesizing McConnell's voice. Child's play today. And they believe it's him.
To me, the detail seems to reveal too much. In his condition I find it doubtful McConnell could talk about all that.
@LagerthaMuadDib@TonySeruga Scott Jennings could have easily been fooled by a real-time AI-generated conversation.
Tony Seruga is right, it is trivially easy to fake a believable conversation with AI now.
But, Jennings should have mentioned this fact on air, and also privately pushed for more evidence.
Right — so the official story is that McConnell had two phone calls. One “lengthy and substantive” with Thune, one ~20 minutes with Barrasso. And this is being presented as evidence that everything’s fine.
Let’s think about what this actually proves.
Phone Calls Prove a Voice. That’s It.
A phone call is the single easiest thing to fake with today’s technology. McConnell has thousands of hours of publicly available speech — floor remarks, interviews, press conferences, C-SPAN footage spanning decades. That’s more than enough training data to clone a voice that could fool even people who know him very well, especially over a phone line where compression artifacts mask any subtle artifacts.
The fact that his staff (seriously?) is pointing to phone calls as the reassuring evidence is almost more suspicious than if they’d said nothing. If the man can hold a “lengthy and substantive” conversation about national security, why can’t he appear on camera for 30 seconds? A FaceTime screenshot. A photo of him in his hospital bed, holding a newspaper. A brief video statement. Any of these would actually settle the question.
What Would Actually End the Speculation
- A live video appearance
- A photograph with a current newspaper or visible date marker
- An in-person visit from a reporter (not just political allies who have every incentive to play along)
- A Senate floor appearance
Instead, we got two phone calls — the one format that requires zero visual confirmation and is trivially spoofed.
The Incentive Structure Is the Real Story
Thune and Barrasso aren’t neutral observers here. They have enormous institutional incentive to confirm that McConnell is fine. A Senate leadership vacuum, a Kentucky succession fight, committee chair shuffles, and the optics of an incapacitated senator being propped up by staff — none of that is good for the GOP, especially mid-war with Iran. Their confirmation of a phone call is self-serving rather than independent verification.
The fact that McConnell’s own office chose phone calls as the medium of reassurance, knowing full well the AI voice speculation is already swirling, suggests either profound tone-deafness or that phone calls are the best they can manage — because the man himself is totally incapable of performing on camera.
@kygunguy1@Real_RobN They're getting him for rape.
First victim, Lyndsey Fifield, is Republican.
This one, Jenny Racicot, is a Democrat; so matters more???
But actually, it's because of Dem polling. Leadership is now terrified of the communist surge in NY and Colorado and Platner's a communist too.
Academia concentrates intellectuals because it’s a low accountability bubble where bad ideas like socialism thrive.
According to Thomas Sowell, intellectuals produce ideas judged only by peers.
An engineer’s collapsed building ruins him and a businessman’s flop means bankruptcy.
But if an intellectual’s grand social scheme fails disastrously, he pays no price for being wrong, thanks to tenure and echo chambers.
And according to Ludwig von Mises, capitalism rewards those who serve consumers.
Many intellectuals resent this.
Their ambitions are frustrated, so they retreat to academia/government to denounce the “system” that didn’t crown them, subsidized by the markets they hate.
They excel at abstractions and peer validation, not reality tests.
And the result is a self-selecting club where sounding smart to colleagues takes precedence over delivering results that work for real people.
Because the real world is harsher, and a lot more honest.
@BuntlineNed@TonySeruga Jennings likely doesn't know.
AI can accurately synthesize anyone's voice from publicly available samples. And AI can generate contextually accurate real-time responses.
Point is, we need a few min of bedside LIVE VIDEO with a couple of trusted persons. MUCH harder to fake.
@rf121rf@TonySeruga Mmm... maybe 5-10 minutes, preferably live. Voice conversations can EASILY be convincingly faked with AI generated real-time responses.
But yeah, easy to put this all to bed with proof of life video as that's much, much harder to fake with reputable congresspersons bedside.
@furgerson23@TonySeruga You don't think AI could be used in real-time to reply in a way convincing to any of us?
Of course it could.
Video is much harder to fake. Why no video with all these phone calls? Just give us some live video with, say, rep Massey or somebody.
🚨🇫🇷 Marine Le Pen sentenced to 3 years (2 suspended), €100,000 fine, and house arrest with an electronic bracelet - all to stop her from winning the presidency in 2027.
They’ve been trying to silence her for years. But they failed and she’s STILL eligible to run.
@4547Republican@JonathanTurley It never stopped them before and has been going on in the Democrat party for years.
More recently, we've seen Bernie pushed aside and then just look at Kamala plopped in without a vote in mid 2024.