>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in the town of Pittsford just weeks before the recent election, when a group of people put their voices on video with a warning vote for the Republicans or lose the soul and character of your town.

Vote for Republicans, or watch marijuana and poor people move in.

But about the people making that claim in the ad, they weren't actual people.

They looked like real people.

They sounded like real people.

They were in places that certainly looked like Pittsford, but turns out they were A.I.

generated.

And the video did briefly acknowledge it.

At the end, there was a slight that indicated that they were, quote, A.I.

actors chosen to remind us of the variety of Pittsford residents, end quote.

Here I want you to see and listen for yourself.

If you're watching on the WXXI News YouTube page, you're going to see this video in a moment.

If you're listening to the show, you're going to hear the audio.

I'm going to note beforehand that Pittsford is 92% white as a town, and three of the five people in this ad, you are about to hear are people of color.

One member of our five person to who has supported the wishes of residents on important votes, isn't running for reelection thi This means that our town is one from being governed by a majorit that is profoundly out of sync with most of its residents.

If supervisor Bill Smith or town member Kim Taylor lose this Nove and Scott Waldman doesn't win the open seat, the new board wil pushing the town in a direction most of our citizens reject.

Residents told the board that keeping neighborhoods of single family homes is important to them.

And what is the opposition doing They are disguising their intent to carve up residential homes into rental ap Two current board members alread this plan.

A third vote is all they need.

Six word residents have already been asked, and 83% are against government mandated subsidized housing.

Still, the opposition wants to f new housing developments to include below market rate units in 2024.

Two current board members went o supporting it.

A third vote is all they need to make it In two public hearings on the su 85% of Pittsford residents rejec the idea of allowing marijuana lounges and shops in Pittsburgh.

The opposition they are in favor marijuana shops to the very streets where kids stroll and play.

It's up to you to keep the town by voting for the team you can t All right, so there's the ad.

I've heard a lot of debate about this ad.

I heard some people say it's a new low, a new form of manipulation.

I've also heard the other side, the idea that political ads have always been hyperbolic.

They have often used paid actors.

So what's so different about this?

These aren't paid actors, but paid actors are also not real residents of towns.

Peter Lodge is the director of the George Washington School of Media and Public Affairs.

He says that A.I.

is being used in a number of ways for political campaigns.

More often every year, and the use of this emerging technology can ultimately undermine public trust.

Let's talk about that this hour with our guests joining us in studio first is the person who first highlighted the video and sent it our way, Kevin Spencer Beckford, who is a former member of the Pittsford Town Board, he's managing partner of Finding Your Cup LLC.

He's an operations executive, a business turnaround strategist, and he calls himself an A.I.

humanist.

Welcome back to the program.

>> Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

>> Also with Kevin in studio is Dr.

Jeffrey Allan.

Jeff is director of the Institute for Responsible Technology at Nazareth University.

Welcome back to the program.

>> Happy to be back.

>> Kevin and one of Jeff's colleagues at Nazareth University is Dr.

Timothy Kneeland.

Tim is a professor and director of history and politics and law at Nahs.

Tim, welcome back.

Nice to talk to you again.

>> Great to be here.

Evan.

>> Tim, this is the first ad I've ever heard that used hyperbolic language.

Right?

Is this the end of society?

Can you believe in politics?

We would use language like this.

>> Unbelievable.

>> I know, I know, look, I want to start with Kevin, and everyone's going to have a lot to share.

And listeners, I want to know what you thought of this ad.

The reason Kevin reached out was not because you think this is the first time we've seen hyperbolic language in a campaign, but there was a different layer to this, to you, and I want you to describe what that was.

>> So my goodness, this is a tough one.

Again, as a resident of Pittsford and and also a former board member so I've had a chance to serve in that capacity on the town board.

And so to see artificial intelligence used in this way is not so much that it hasn't happened nationally.

Right?

We've seen that, of course, we've seen some really poor examples, even from our president.

Right.

In terms of when he him flying a plane and dropping, you know.

>> Excrement.

>> Excrement on top of people.

>> Sure, there's A.I.

videos all over the place and we're going to see more of them.

>> Yeah.

So so I think for me, what really troubled me was that you know, because I've sat on the board and I've worked with, with, you know, Bill Smith and his counterparts at the time, he was always really clear that he liked the idea of us being exclusive.

And he was very open about that, and he would share that openly when we would have our discussions.

either as a board.

and so, you know, the fact that you would then use a A.I.

video using more minorities in the video than is represented only in just our resident base, but espousing language that is generally considered to be racially coded language.

>> Well, what's an example of that?

>> So for example, when they talk about Pittsford changing forever and we're going to lose the solar, Pittsford, my question is what is the solar Pittsford like, for example.

And I actually had a direct discussion with Bill Smith about this when we were having a discussion.

It was a group of residents that pulled together, meeting with Bill Smith, myself and Stephanie Townsend, and and so in that discussion, the residents and there was a resident group from Pittsford and they called the meeting to say, hey, we're really glad, Councilman Beckford, that your amendment to pass a law to really have us use inclusionary zoning laws for our remaining lands so that developers can come in with higher density housing designs like patio homes, condos and townhomes, which would allow for more socioeconomic diversity.

And this is a quote from these people.

They said, these are residents, right?

Right in front of my face like it was.

It was not a dream.

And they said, we're really glad your amendment didn't pass, because if that happened, we believe more black people would move here to Pittsford.

The white people would leave a house, values would go down or school systems would fail, and there would be more crime.

No offense.

I said, well, offense taken, I said, I said, because you're looking at one of those people right now, I'm here.

My my property values have gone up like yours.

Schools still here.

There's no more crime.

Everything's kind of cool.

I said, so what you just said are racist tropes that people peddle without understanding where they came from.

And this happened to be an immigrant group, by the way.

And I said, you're a first generation immigrant like me, so I'm going to give you a pass.

The fact that you don't know this country's history, I didn't I moved here at 18, and I didn't know that.

I said, but if you read The Color of Law and saw what we did to segregate areas, if we think about the things we've done historically as a country to marginalize people, you're somehow giving the notion that African Americans don't value education, don't value safety, don't value house values.

Growing up, I said so.

So for you to actually tell me that to my face is deeply offensive.

And as I was saying that Bill Smith, sitting right next to me says, well, I disagree with Council Member Beckford.

I think in order to keep the character of Pittsford, listen to that word, the character of Pittsford, we have to attract the right kind of diversity.

And I looked at him and I said, well, what does that mean?

Right.

Kind of diversity?

What part of the human race do you not want?

So when people use the word the soul of Pittsford, what is the soul of Pittsford?

We had deed and covenant restrictions until 1968 to keep African Americans out.

We used exclusionary zoning laws to keep prices so high, to keep out people.

So to me, the soul of Pittsford.

What is that?

So to me, that type of language, we know what that means.

It's a nice way for saying, I don't want black people here, but I'm going to say it in a way that you can't call me on that.

>> So let me hit a couple of points with Kevin, and then our other guests have we're going to weigh in on different aspects of this, because I think we're going to have to get used to more A.I.

in all parts of society, including political ads.

so a couple of things here, Kevin.

First of all, I think your argument, if I was going to boil it down is this you can say in an ad that we're worried about more subsidized housing, we're worried about more low income or below market rate housing.

The code that you hear is we're worried about more racial diversity, not just poor people, but black people.

>> Talking about how they're talking about who's going to be in the house.

>> Okay, okay.

>> That's what that's what they're trying.

They don't want to say that.

Okay.

And they say just.

>> And the reason you think the ad is racist is not just that message, but the fact that in a town that's 92% white, the people who are making that claim in the ad, yes, the A.I.

images are black people.

>> It's deeply offensive.

I got to tell you what I saw that or.

>> People of color.

There's an Asian person, a black person.

>> My first reaction was that, oh, my gosh, you know, what a horrible way to use A.I.

There's a lot of good things you can do with A.I.

This isn't one of them.

And to me it was very unbelievably cruel and and unfortunately, somewhat what I experienced when I was on the board working with Bill is that they generally just don't have a deep respect for people of color.

They don't.

>> So to be clear here, I don't have any evidence that the supervisor was behind the ad.

The ad is listed as being created by a group of concerned Pittsford residents.

And I did ask the supervisor when he was on this program during the campaign about the concern about lower income housing.

And I said to him, is it your view that just poor people, I said, they have to live somewhere, people who are struggling financially have to live somewhere?

He said, of course they do.

And I said, is it your vision then, that they just don't live in Pittsford?

And he said, no, my vision for Pittsford.

When we talk about the character of Pittsford, is that Pittsford is the type of place that people aspire to be able to live in, that that is a goal that you have that that is something that that you can put in your future.

Work towards it, be proud of it and and contribute in that way.

It's not a matter of being exclusionary.

It's a matter of creating a high standard and giving people goals.

>> So I can tell you flat out I've had discussions with him about that very subject.

Those are the words that he uses in terms of like general language.

But let me explain to you what that really means.

>> He's going to disagree with what you think it means.

>> I'm okay with that.

Okay.

I work with Bill.

Let me tell you something.

I spent four years on the board.

What people don't know in Pittsford is that I was new to governing.

So you know what I did?

I met with Bill Smith before every single board meeting.

Three days before the meeting to go over the entire agenda, and it gave me a chance to get to know him.

It gave me a chance to get to know about governing.

But you know what?

I was also doing to try to humanize it so it may change his views.

So I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt.

And I'll be honest with you, if people out there have had experience with them, you really need to speak up.

Because what I'm doing right now is trying to explain the fact that this coded language needs to stop.

To me, if you have struggles with people of color, you should explore.

Why?

Because it ain't because something's wrong with us.

We want what you want.

That's not my words.

That's James Baldwin from back in the 50s.

What do black people want?

They asked him.

He says, we want what you want to be left alone, to live, to love, to laugh, to to to enjoy, to fail, to succeed, but to have the notion that a supervisor, any town, any human being can decide on who should or should not live in my town.

Who on earth gave you that privilege?

Exclusionary.

When he talks about you have to aspire to it.

I have one question for you.

Being an exclusionary, being exclusionary as a town is not a badge of honor.

It's a badge of shame to me.

I want Pittsford to be open.

I want my barista who served me coffee this morning to live in the town and not say, if you work really hard and if you make over $200,000, you get to live here.

No, nobody should be doing that, that mind.

And I'll be honest with you.

And I sound a little bit intense right now is because we have to have this conversation as a society.

And let me be very honest with you, I believe history has already made this decision.

We're moving in a direction away from exclusionary thinking.

That's what gives me hope.

So I'm hopeful.

Today, the election this week, it gave me hope as a human being to say, My God, people are finally listening.

So we're we're moving in this direction.

The question is, people with that mindset like Bill Smith, you will either someday join us.

If not, you keep doing you do you.

And we're going to build the America that we want, which includes all humans.

See, Bill is in my world.

I'm not in his.

>> I've got one other point for Kevin.

And then I'm going to bring in our other guests on sort of different aspects of the ad that we're talking about.

I just want to close that last point that you're making there.

This ad was pretty well known.

It was a lot of people saw it.

And then I think it was sort of quote, unquote taken down, although it wasn't I think it wasn't a paid ad.

It's just shared on a lot of socials.

Right.

And so a lot of people see the ad, and Pittsford is one of the only places locally where the Republicans held a seat when the Democratic wave that was happening hit.

So in Perinton, you've got your first Democratic supervisor in 107 years in Penfield, you have your first Democratic supervisor in 42 years.

In Greece, it might be ever the first Democrat in Pittsford.

You now have more Democrats registered than Republicans.

And the entire Pittsford Town Board flips the Democrat.

>> Except for bills.

>> But Bill Smith, the the Republican supervisor, clearly is liked enough and respected enough.

He wins reelection.

And I want to mention to our listeners, you can go back and listen to the tape, but the Democrat in that race was on this program.

And Kathy Kashgar told us that there's a lot she disagrees with.

But I'm Bill Smith.

But her view was it's got to be up to the people on housing.

Right.

And I asked her.

Are there times where people might be against something that you are for that you're going to kind of lead on?

And she would not say that on housing.

She did not adopt the stance that you are adopting.

I will say that she didn't agree with Bill Smith on everything, but she said it should be really up to the people and she did not win.

So in some ways, what you're describing, the people of Pittsford chose and they chose to to validate the supervisor, who's been elected a number of times.

>> There.

Now, I'm so glad you said this.

I was hoping you wouldn't ask me this question because I, I think what the what what the voters have said in voting for Bill.

And by the way, just to make it crystal clear, when I, when I won as the one of the first two Democrats in Pittsford in over 110 plus years, first African American, 220 years, we only had 130 more registered Democrats and Republicans.

2017 right?

Today we have almost 3000 more registered Democrats, I believe.

Right, right.

>> So you should have.

>> Won, right?

So I'm getting there.

Okay.

So we have over 3000 more registered Democrats than Republicans.

So quite frankly, there's no reason why we shouldn't have won.

And the reason why we didn't win is something I learned when I served on the town board.

Some of the people who voted for me, Evan, and for those of you out there listening, some of the very people who voted for me, I found out when I went to pass that bill, I didn't have all of their support.

So we conflate democracy or Democrats with a certain way of thinking.

I'm here to tell you, I discovered in a very real world example, there are Democrats that hold the same views towards exclusionary type thinking that Republicans do because it has nothing to do with party.

It has something to do with our society.

It's America.

So just because you choose to be an independent Republican or a Democrat, I was naive to think if I run as a Democrat, because I really believe in Democratic principles, and in fact, it democratic principles is we're a big tent party.

But apparently there's sections in that party for some people and sections that we don't belong.

So people who put out Black Lives Matter signs on their lawn in Pittsford, please do not think that that means that it means Black Lives Matter, period.

Because it may matter for that line or that lawn.

A lawn sign on my lawn.

But it may not mean my neighborhood or my school and so on.

So I believe that this is.

And the reason why you say, how could I be hopeful?

Do you know why?

Because I believe we have to have this conversation.

So we're going to reach a point where there could be 100% Democrats in Pittsford, and they might still vote for Bill Smith because they haven't looked in the mirror yet to say, do I really believe that human beings with black and brown skin don't deserve to live here?

And by the way, the fact that it's even associated with low income housing, we don't want black people here.

I'm not in low income housing.

My house is worth $600,000, and I'm here.

They have houses for 200,000 $300,000.

So to me, people use that sort of language.

We don't want low income housing in Pittsford.

You know, we want affordable housing.

You don't.

We want so someone who is a senior citizen who spent 30 years in Pittsford and give $15,000 a year in taxes, sell your two story home, but you can't afford the one story home because it's twice as much.

>> All right, I got to jump in.

It sounds like you're actually running for something again.

Kevin.

Well, do you want to break any news here?

>> Well, I'll tell you this.

>> There's gonna be an election in one year.

>> Well, no.

Well, let me tell you this.

Yeah, and you?

Not a lot of folks know this.

Kathy knows this.

The entire Pittsford Democratic Committee knows this.

In January.

In January, when we were doing designations, I got a 97% vote to run for town supervisor.

>> But before I said yes, I had to go and talk to Sheriff Baxter because my last year and a half in office, we had to have some protection from the police, because when I tried to pass that law to make Pittsford more affordable.

Now, keep in mind now let me be clear about this.

When I say inclusionary zoning laws, it doesn't mean low cost housing exclusively.

It means higher density housing.

So you could have a patio home, a 200,000.

So so so so in other words, just so people can get their mind right about that.

>> Right.

But the point being that you decided not to run because.

>> So and because when that when I didn't get the when I didn't get the vote the very next day or that week a couple of the people that were pretty upset about me even trying to do that doxed our house, put it on social media, and then another person posted this innocuous video as a comment that saying people change agents should be shot, killed or assassinated.

So we had to work with Todd Baxter, Sheriff Baxter, and he had a car parked in front of her house at night so we could sleep.

He patrols in our street randomly to till the threat was reduced.

And so it was really clear that, you know, even though I lost a vote that, you know, there was this feeling of, like, threatening, you know, our life and the life of my daughter.

So when I said, boy, my goodness, if they did that to me as a town board member, what would they do for me as a supervisor?

So I went downtown and met with Baxter and his office.

I said, hey, what's the landscape now?

I mean, it feels like the mood in the country.

I'm seeing what's happening.

This is January now, right?

January not not now.

So a lot's happened since then that reinforce my concern.

And he said, Kevin, I think we'll have to do a threat assessment of your house.

You're sitting on the canal, a canal bed, you know, so someone could stay back there and you know, and you know, and take a shot at you from there.

Right.

So we would need to put some cameras up or some lighting, you know, we'd have to figure out if this, you know, we'll make some recommendations of what you could do.

We could come up with a protocol.

You're not the only one.

We do this with, you know?

And so I could have someone at your house in three minutes.

And so.

So I had to take that information back to my wife.

And I said, do you think we can live like this for for two years?

And she says, I don't know.

She says, I think we could if we do all the right things.

We did it before.

But my daughter doesn't live with us anymore.

She lives downtown, and so I would have to have the same kind of a, you know, support system downtown that I was not sure if I could do that.

And my daughter was in somewhat of a vulnerable state at a young person on her own and struggling with some of the things that young people struggle with.

So I had to go back to the PDC and say, I respectfully decline, and I put together a wonderful note.

I can share that with you, Evan, that I sent out to to them to let them know I'm declining the nomination because I can't keep my family safe.

And then Kathy stepped up and says, I will run.

And then then and at that point, Sharon then says, and I will run.

I mean, so the point is we we as a team, I like the PDC because you know what?

They realize the predicament I was in if I ran and they stepped up and they delivered.

>> Okay, so now let's get back to the ad here.

And I want to talk to Jeff and Tim about a number of things here.

First of all, Jeffrey Allen is the director of the Institute for Responsible Technology at Nazareth.

This is not the first ad in politics that we've seen use A.I.

We know that.

And we're going to see a lot more.

We're going to see A.I.

in all parts of society as we already kind of do.

So is there anything that stands out to you about this one?

And I'm not talking about the content.

You don't have to weigh in on some of the issues that Kevin's talking about, but just the ad itself.

What struck you when you saw it?

>> There's a lot to unpack here.

Evan.

certainly.

you know, it's a very ham fisted ad.

I mean, but that's not to be unexpected.

Within politics.

We've had 501 c4's around dark money around for quite a while.

This is just the latest tool in their toolbox to be able to produce something that previously would have been done with paid actors.

As you said, the difference here is that it lowers the bar quite significantly on how easily you can produce these types of advertisements and basically get the A.I.

to say anything you want it to say.

So I view it more as a iterative change within political type campaigning.

not something that, you know, that's that's not doable before.

It's just easier to do now.

So that's kind of how I, think about the ad in terms of content.

From a technical point of view.

I look at it and I say, okay, that's A.I., I can look at it.

>> And you would have looked at that if I would have just shared that with you and told you nothing else about it, you would have deduced it as A.I.

>> Yes.

There was like very many telltale signs.

>> I mean, to me, the only thing that would have been the easy giveaway was that there's five different people and they're talking and they're in very known Pittsford locations, and it's always sunny skies.

And by the end of their commentary, the storm clouds roll in and then lightning flashes.

>> That was the ham fisted part.

I was thinking.

>>, yeah.

>> But but we've seen that in, you know, kind of ham fisted ads for decades, right?

That's not new.

I think I would have deduced that part as A.I.

if they didn't use that.

I don't know, Jeff, that I would have looked at the people and said, I don't think that's a real person.

I think that's A.I.

I think I could have been fooled.

>> Well, you kind of lead nicely into my next point, which is that we're at the point now that I can look at ads like that, and folks who are very familiar with A.I.

can look and say, okay, that's a synthesized voice, that's a synthetic person.

However as the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman once said, you know, the version of ChatGPT that you're using right now is the worst version you'll ever use.

Yeah.

And so from here, it only gets better, essentially.

And we need to be mindful of that.

And it's not just political ads.

It's it's videos in general that can now be produced with anyone saying anything.

So we get to this point where discerning what's real, what's not.

It becomes much more challenging and that will become, you know, like the Pittsford A.D., you've got three people of color, two people who are white, when in fact that doesn't represent the demographics of the town.

But it carries a lot more weight, if you will.

to see someone say, okay, so someone of color says, well, we don't want below market housing here.

it seems to be that they're, they're on board with that.

And it gives others the impression that, okay, so people of color are saying this, then it must be.

>> That insulates against the charge that Kevin is raising, which is it might be a racist idea.

one other point here for the idea that an ad, a political ad can use paid actors and has does that insulate the use of A.I.

actor?

I don't even like the term A.I.

actors, because like, that assumes it's like a person.

It's not a person there, but A.I.

images or A.I.

generated content.

if I'm running for office, I don't have to have real people in my ads.

I can hire actors, and I don't like that idea.

I don't like it as a voter, as a citizen, but it's inbounds.

So A.I.

actors doesn't strike me as all that different, I guess, other than you're not paying human beings now.

But what do you see, Jeff?

>> I had this conversation with a colleague earlier in the week to where we talked about the fact that what we considered traditionally to be CGI, for example, within films.

How would that is that really different than what you're seeing with A.I.

generated content now?

Except it's more automated, right?

So this is, as you said, it's been there.

We've been able to do things like this for quite a long time, whether it's paid actors, whether it's manual CGI ING or we're using A.I.

So I again, I see it more as an iterative change in how we're producing things right now just to lower the cost and make it quicker to do.

But the messages that they're bringing across has been something that's been around as long as dark money and politics essentially has been around.

>> That's not an entirely new part of it.

Yeah.

So Timothy Kneeland how do you see this ad?

How did this first hit you?

>> To to think that they were going to use this in a, in a local election.

But again, listening to Kevin, it makes perfect sense in terms of the, of the construct of the town.

But I would also say, yes, this is this is cheaper, faster.

But I would also point out how many eyeballs see these.

Right.

this ad was pulled fairly quickly.

I think it went on.

What Pittsford Neighborhoods or Friends of Pittsford or some such on social media.

It was on YouTube briefly, but once the alarm was sounded, it was pulled.

So we also have to understand that no matter how many fake images we get, we still have a limited number of eyeballs that are going to see these.

And then how this reflects a lot of times voters will actually look at a candidate more skeptically if they realize they're using A.I., which is interesting because, as you say, Bill Smith was retained, but is a pretty close retention there.

you know, for a guy who's been in office for a long time.

So I wonder if this did have an effect on eroding the public confidence in Bill Smith.

although, again, he had plausible deniability because he did not create this.

It was a friend or a friend of Bill Smith, kind of committee.

>> And, Tim, as just as citizens, the idea of ads that will make claims that might be out of might be inaccurate or might be coded, that's not new.

As Jeff points out, this is a, you know, an iteration of something that has already existed.

And do you have a message for us to be smarter consumers of of ads to begin with?

Tim?

I mean, because I think it's going to get more sophisticated with A.I.

We're going to hear we're going to see more quote, unquote A.I.

actors.

I'm I'm just as concerned about the way audio is going to be used and the way that we are going to be forced to try to decide in a short amount of time is what I'm seeing here, or hearing here trustworthy?

>> Right.

And again, that's the that's the real concern from people in politics is that it's going to further erode, which is already a very low trust in government or even kind of officials.

Right.

So as they micro-target individuals using ads like this you've got two things going on.

You've got again, these voices, these coded messages, these race baiting messages that go way back in American history.

being now pushed out, but maybe not, as, you know, into the general audience, but to targeting people they think it will be most effective on to, to get them to come out.

So you've got that going on, but then you've also got this, this concern about, okay, if people find out these things are being generated, how are they going to have any trust in the authenticity of a candidate?

they don't even like it when they find out a candidate has used A.I.

to generate their speeches.

Right?

People are like, whoa, why couldn't you write your own speech?

Why can't you use your own words?

So yeah, this actually has what we call, you know, kind of a backfire effect in some examples when they've done studies of, of this with focus groups and said, okay, oh yeah, that was A.I.

generated.

And then the scale goes the other way and people are like, wow, I don't trust that person at all.

So I think politicians need to be careful.

As for the consumer, these are going to get more sophisticated.

Yeah, I mean, I would just be skeptical of just about anything because even if you go to their website, right, what are you going to find there?

You may find some A.I.

generated content nicely marketed and pretty, and put in nice phrases, but coded in a way that will appeal to a certain kind of voter.

>> There's a whole other conversation parallel to this with with Jeff for another day, which is the quality of prompts in the quality of material out.

And what where do we draw the lines there?

But but before we kind of continue here, let me just mention a couple of things here.

a lot of people listening, and I'm going to get to your comments and feedback starting right now with Julie Demers, the mayor of Fairport, who says, I saw the ad and I was disgusted by it.

And the former mayor of the city of Rochester, Bill Johnson, is on the line with us.

Bill floor is yours.

Go ahead sir.

>> Thank you.

I just wanted to add a little historical perspective to this very, very important conversation.

And I appreciate Kevin Bedford having the courage to make a point that really nobody wants to listen to in 2003.

Evan, you will remember I was the candidate for Monroe County executive.

I was a Democrat trying to get a job that Republicans had historically held, and I was a black man from the city of Rochester.

And Steve Minarik, the late Steve Minarik openly admitted to me afterwards that he ran an ad, the so-called Pac-Man ad, which showed Pac-Man from the city, gobbling up towns, villages and school districts in Monroe County.

I was the existential threat to the calm security.

that people in the suburbs enjoyed.

They were not ready for the message.

And believe it or not, I wasn't talking about consolidation in that race.

I was talking about the state of the finances of Monroe County and how it had been poorly governed by Jack Doyle and particularly Jack Doyle.

I was roundly defeated in that race.

Now, let me add a second nonpolitical thing, which is also equally important.

And this discussion, the mark for housing development that was proposed to be built in the village of Pittsford on Monroe Avenue, and that project was doomed because it was rental housing, even though it was market rate housing.

The fear was that people who moved in those units would distort the nature of the town.

The quality of life of the town.

It was a fear that a lot of poor black people would now become residents of the village of Pittsford.

There's nothing new about this.

I appreciate the fervor with which Kevin Beckwith has raised at this point, and he's raised it to a new level.

But as long as we continue to ignore the racial implications of this problem, we're going to be walking around with our head stuck in a hole in the ground.

>> Mr.

mayor, I appreciate it as always.

It's been a little while and I really appreciate you calling the program.

I do want to say a couple things about that.

first of all, there's been a total of one conversation I ever had with former county executive Maggie Brooks, and it was one of my first conversations on this program.

In February of 2014.

And she never came back after that.

but that was a racist ad, and her campaign had to own that.

It was very effective.

In 2003 was one of the first things I covered when I moved to Rochester was that particular campaign.

And that ad was enormous.

So for listeners who don't remember it or weren't here, that was a very, very powerful ad.

The idea of this, this inner city Pac-Man coming out and gobbling up the rural areas, the suburbs, the towns, the school districts.

And it worked.

It was very, very.

Now, I'm not saying Bill Johnson should have won.

That's not for me to say.

And I'm not saying he would have won if not for the ad.

I'm just saying that that ad was certainly something that people talked about, and it was a similar theme of an idea here that we've been talking about here.

What I think relates to the particular conversation about the ad that we've been we've been talking about is, you know, so, Jeff, when you when you think about historically, if I wanted to make a claim as an ad of anything I wanted, I could have hired film crews or people to do it, and it might be cumbersome.

You know, there was a rather famous story in the 1980s of a producer who wanted to make it seem like kids were fishing through garbage cans for food, and they paid a couple kids to do it.

And it was a kind of a scandal.

But you can pay people to do things.

You can pay actors.

I think what we have to be prepared for is the speed and ease of the tools makes the kind of messaging much more attainable for anybody at any level.

So now it's not just this national campaign that's got the money to hire actors and film crews.

If you're if you're good with an A.I.

tool, you can do a lot more these days.

Is that fair?

>> I think that's very fair.

And so if you think about traditionally how we produced advertisements like that, even at a low entry point, you're still talking probably tens of thousands to get the crew and the actors and the everything that needs to go with that.

What I looked at for the Pittsford ad was probably done on a free tier of software.

Honestly, it looked pretty low budget.

>> You're pretty harsh about the Pittsford ad.

>> It is.

>> If if it was a student in your class, what would the grade be?

>> that would be like a B-plus, I think.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

It was not an A.

>> It's very noticeable if you've worked with it, you know.

So but let me, let me a couple of things I want to say too, is that, you know, to me, it's not so much the tool, the fact that the, the what the tool can do is going to provide different amounts of agency to create more harm.

So what do I mean by that?

So in a traditional sense, just forget it was an A.I.

and they paid actors to do it.

They could find actors to do that.

Right.

But there may be some things an actor go like, I'm not going to say that.

That's just that's just wrong.

But with A.I., you could make it do.

>> There's no moral question there.

>> So which means so, so so I think my, my hope is and I and I appreciate you giving me latitude to share what I did earlier.

And Bill Johnson, thank you for calling in.

I didn't know that I didn't know about that ad and what had happened historically back then around that and specifically.

But I believe that's a broader discussion we need to have.

Right.

Because what I'm suggesting is the fact that A.I.

may have used this in a way to try to manipulate the vote, but I think it really hurt Bill Smith.

And how do I know that?

Look at how much he won by back in 2017 and how much he won by now.

>> But to your admission, there were fewer registered Democrats back then.

>> But my point is, is that he is he won by a much smaller amount, which means I believe, more and more people, because when they release that ad, enough people saw it.

There was a dialog going on even after they pulled the ad, and all of a sudden people were coming out of the woodwork and saying, my goodness, like, here's my experience I had and here's my experience.

And so I think, I think his brand, if you will, is starting to become more clear with not the brand we see on TV, but who he is when he's walking through the town and working with people now and again.

I want to be clear, everybody's entitled to be themselves.

I'm not really.

This is not an anti bill discussion.

I just think that this is we have to, as a society, decide who do we want to be.

I'm a first generation immigrant like most of us here.

Unless you're Native American, at some point you came here from somewhere.

And so I came here at the age of 18 for what I thought was the American dream, only to find out as a human being in black and brown skin frost, it's more of a nightmare.

We get to watch other people with the dream.

And so for so for me, at the end of the day, you have two choices.

Get about the business of creating the dream or you lament about it not being here.

I chose to create the dream.

So I spent 42 years in this country doing everything I can in those places and spaces I occupy to create the kind of equity and the kind of belonging, loving community that Dr.

King talked to this country about in the 60s.

And to me, at the end of the day, that's the work we need to do.

What I find very troubling.

And boy, if you're listening today and you're in Pittsford, any other I'm going to speak about Pittsford, right.

Because it applies to any other town.

Just after you hear this program, go and look in the mirror and ask yourself, at what point did I become complacent with the fact that I either can actively or passively by apathetically not doing anything, support a town that wants to be exclusive, knowing that it's going to exclude human beings.

We're not talking about low income housing or any kind of housing we're talking about.

We should have towns that afford housing for everyone.

I want my barista to live in my town, but I can't do that because people are so afraid of even embracing that concept because they're afraid of more black people coming in.

Well, why don't you deal with that problem?

We're here.

And in fact, as of 2012, look at census data.

Just Google it or, you know, ChatGPT it.

The majority of children born in the United States after 2012 were from families of color.

It's already happened.

White people will eventually be a part of one of the other.

Minorities will be a majority minority country.

So why don't we learn to live in peace and share our resources instead of being afraid of each other?

I am there already.

I've been there for eight years.

My neighbors are happy with me being there.

They're not scared.

They're not pulling their kids into the house when I get there.

When I come on my street.

So this notion that we we can't keep skipping over it.

What Bill Johnson just said tells you that what I just said to you in 2025 was happening then, and it's still happening now.

So and I need to close with this.

It's really important.

I believe we have to have a discussion around what do we do with A.I.

And I'm going to make a bold sort of like suggestion.

I believe, in Monroe County we could do this right, because we can make a law that's local.

We should have a law that says you cannot use A.I.

In certain ways during campaigns.

So so now, now, not to not to.

>> I get very squishy when you start going in that direction.

>> I know.

Well let me finish.

So you'll see why.

I'm not saying not to govern the speech that they have, but as a candidate, if you're if I'm running against you, Evan, I should it should be prohibited for me to create an A.I.

actor that looks just like you, saying words that are not yours, that is against your interests.

>> Well, that's a saying.

You can't misrepresent me using.

>> A.I., right?

>> I I'm with you there.

>> Yes.

>> But I, I feel like if we're going to allow for paid actors and ads, we're going to have A.I.

actors.

>> And ads.

>> I'm not against that.

And the reason being is because to me, it's democratizes that.

Right?

So then you have a candidate doesn't have a lot of money.

They can create a really cool ad, but you cannot use a likeness of one.

>> Of your likeness.

Okay.

>> And then have them say things that's not theirs, because then you start to manipulate the vote.

>> One other.

So I oh, my gosh.

>> We haven't even.

>> Taken a break.

I understand what you're saying.

I got to ask Tim about this.

And then what I'm gonna do is we're going to squeeze in our only break, and then we're going to get as much feedback as we can here.

Tim Nealon, in that, in that world that Kevin's talking about regulating A.I.

is the free marketplace of ideas going to be effective, where you say, if if I'm running against Kevin and Kevin creates an A.I.

ad with somebody that looks like me, insane, wild stuff.

People are going to know pretty quickly that Kevin did something underhanded and that may backfire on him.

Do we need a law that says he can't do that?

Tim.

>> I you know, I think, you know, Kevin would turn around and sue for defamation and or, or some such that there would be public backlash to that.

And I will say there's been A.I.

generated by the Senate Republicans of Chuck Schumer saying things he already said, but they did it in a way where they took certain things out of context.

So even if we even if we don't have people misleading, you can create an ad that misleads people by taking words spoken by someone or in print or whatever, and putting them in their mouth.

So I would also be cautious about that.

But again, I guess we just need to have more informed voters and consumers because we have to be very careful about trying to regulate political speech, because that leads to to, you know, censorship.

And you know that bad actors will use that against us.

>> Yeah, I think that's well said.

And as we take our only break, I'll just say, regardless of what gets regulated, we need to be better educated on A.I., communication, different tools, et cetera.

and that's why people like Tim, Jeff, Kevin are here because we have to be better educated.

Then we'll make better decisions.

I think.

Then we'll be better consumers of information.

>> You know what's scary though, Evan?

I mean, in three months, I don't know if I'd be able to tell if that video was not.

>> I know, I mean.

>> Like, it actually already exists because they used it for three years ago.

>> We were talking every teacher who came on three years ago was like, I'll never have a student write a paper that I couldn't tell was A.I.

And now they're all like, oh boy, it's a lot, Jeff.

Jeff said it.

Well, here it's the worst that will ever be.

Yep.

We got to get this break and we'll come right back and more feedback on the other side.

>> Okay.

>> Coming up in our second hour, can books compete with social media, the internet and digital spaces?

Research shows young people are reading a lot less, both in their English classes, in school, but also for pleasure.

According to a study from the University of Florida and University College London.

Daily reading for pleasure among kids is down 40% in just two decades.

What do we do about this?

We'll talk about it next hour.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola Center.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson, so let's get Julie in Pittsford on the phone.

Hey Julie, go ahead.

>> Hi.

Yes don't be so hung up on the A.I.

Beat them at their own game.

What you need to do is put an article in the DNC or areas explaining the real problem.

The real problem is we do need multi income housing and Pittsford and the Crystal barn area would be a perfect spot actually for that kind of housing.

But the biggest problem is 75% of the population right now is retired.

And people do not have housing or retirement or any of those types of plans.

And in Henrietta, they're absorbing a lot of this.

They're building a bunch of 55 and older housing right now.

And they had at one building, 700 applicants.

There's a lot of elderly that have not saved for assisted living or or, you know, their their retirements and they have to go somewhere.

It's more expensive to put them in nursing homes and such, keeping them in living is good, but they do need affordable housing in Pittsford.

They need to absorb it just like other towns are doing.

and so lay out the problem, show what's happening in all these other towns and how they're doing it, and how Pittsford needs to do it too.

The problem is, is Pittsford is known as an area where doctors live to be close to the hospital, and that's what you're going up against.

And I actually ran in Henrietta as a female.

I got death threats to ignore that.

Just keep pushing.

>> Thank you for the phone call, Julie.

Want a brief response there?

Kevin?

>> Yeah, thank you for that.

And in fact, I remember having a really my last sort of negotiation session with Bill on the inclusionary zoning law.

I remember saying to him, I said, you know my idea is to really allow for almost three generations, same neighborhood.

I said, you don't have to stretch on the idea.

Woodcreek.

It has apartments, it has condos, townhomes.

And so people can retire and drop their costs down.

And so after they've given 30 years to the town, they'll get to live here.

I said, so, I said, so why won't you support it?

He said, well, your idea is good and it would work.

I said, well, if it would work, why wouldn't you do that?

He says, it's not like they can't buy homes today.

I said, but Bill, you're building senior housing for very wealthy people because they're one story home.

Half to size is twice as much.

He said, well, they could always go, and I quote, I can always go to they can always go to Henrietta Penfield, parenting or other areas because they're doing more of that.

I said, yeah, well, you should put that in your campaign ad so they'll know that when they vote for you or vote for you is to say, when I retire, I have to leave.

So I think that if if we don't build that argument.

So she has a really good point, we need to be able to do a really good job of publicizing that.

If you want a Pittsford that includes you when you retire, your children, your young families, then you need to choose a different leader.

>> a number of listeners have written in sharing a story that was brought up on this program a couple of two days ago.

When was it two days?

When did we have Bret Schafer on the program?

Was it Monday?

Was that yesterday?

Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh, I can't hear what you're saying.

Megan Mack that was Tuesday.

Bret Schafer was on the program.

I was the guest of the World Affairs Council in Rochester, and he works for a national organization on information disinformation campaigns around the world.

And he brought up the Slovakia election a couple of falls ago.

Let me read the story from CNN.

A couple of listeners flagged for us days before a pivotal election in Slovakia to determine who would lead the country.

A audio recording spread online in which one of the top candidates seemingly boasted about how he he would rig the election.

And if that wasn't bad enough, his voice could also be heard on the recording talking about raising the cost of beer.

The recordings immediately went viral on social media, and the candidate, who is pro-nato and aligned with Western interests, was defeated by an opponent who supported closer ties to Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Turns out it was a deep it was.

a-I took his voice, put it out there days before.

People didn't have a lot of time.

And was it enough to swing the election?

Well, the guy lost.

So, Jeff, when Kevin is raising concerns about using the likeness of people, it's not just the physical image.

>> Oh, your voice.

>> The audio is really scary.

People are there are scams out there.

There's ransom scams happening.

How concerned do we have to be as a consuming populace when it comes to political ads using just audio?

>> I think it's equally as potentially damaging as video or a combination of both.

certainly audio is more advanced at this point, at least in my opinion, than the video generation is.

It can get pretty close to most people's voices as long as it has some training data and of course, public figures.

There's lots of training data to go from.

So I do think it's as equally important concern as the video is and what I've seen recently too, which really has been alarming for example, from OpenAI, one of the video generators out there, quite popular.

They mark their video, they watermark it with a Sarah icon.

And I still see people on social media who think this is genuine.

And I actually saw someone yesterday go, what's Sarah?

And that's kind of right.

>> They're supposed to be trying to give it away, and people are still missing that, right?

So Jim writes in to say the importance of critical thinking with all the ways A.I.

is impacting our lives, the need for critical thinking is job number one when it comes to educating the public.

Tim Nealon, final thoughts from you on that?

critical thinking in the future.

You're trying to educate smart thinking students.

We're trying to be a smart thinking populace.

We've got more tools than ever to be smarter than ever.

Why are we going in the wrong direction?

Tim?

>> Because we we tend to cluster to ideas that we already have.

Right?

So that when you're micro-targeted, that's what happens.

You get stuck in an echo chamber.

And we really need people to be critical thinkers, which means, hey, a healthy dose of skepticism, no matter what you hear.

And and it's interesting because, you know, you have these A.I.

generated, you know, voices coming out that that could absolutely fool someone into thinking that was real.

And now people are saying this is called, you know, the the Liar's Dividend people being caught with racist remarks or saying, you know what?

I think that was A.I.

generated.

>> That.

>> Wasn't exactly oh, my gosh, that's exactly we're already seeing that.

Tim.

>> Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

One of Trump's agents.

Paul Ingrassia.

Yeah.

No, we we have to be skeptical.

and then we have to verify.

And, you know, it goes back to.

Yes, approach your local media, pay attention to XXI.

You know, you know, watch the local news because they you've got people dedicated to trying to ferret out what's real and what's fake.

But people, if you only go to social media, you're probably going to get more fake than real.

>> Well said, Dr.

Nealon.

Tim, the professor and the director of history, politics and law at Nazareth.

Great talking to you.

Thank you.

Tim.

Thank you, Dr.

Jeffrey Allen, director of the Institute for Responsible Technology at NASA.

I think we need to come back and continue this sometime soon.

>> Happy to come back anytime.

>> Thank you for being here.

Really appreciate that.

And Kevin Bickford, thanks for calling our attention to this.

Thanks for this conversation.

I know we'll talk more soon here.

>> Thank you.

>> For for the opportunity to be here I appreciate it.

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