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One thing people are learning about AI tools like ChatGPT or image generators is that they’re very good at approximating how things are supposed to be, but they only get to the about 90 percent of the way.
The generated images include alien hands or fingers because the tools know that bodies have appendages and that’s good enough. The text used in the images is jumble of letters or lettery things, because to something that doesn’t understand the meaning the text conveys, it looks exactly like the text looks. ChatGPT provides credible answers to user questions: imaginary legal cases, for example, because it’s simply trying to recreate the kind of responses it thinks users expect. Create realistic information, not factual information.
That’s usually good enough! The images achieve the desired intent. What ChatGPT stands for delivers what is asked for. The effect is impressive, despite the flaws.
This is also how Donald Trump approaches politics.
On Thursday, Trump was hosted by Fox News’ Sean Hannity for a conversation about the “town hall” in Iowa. In most respects, it mirrored CNN’s town hall with Trump last month. Fox used a formalized set adhering to the New Policy aesthetic of vibrant, bright reds and blues. He took questions for Trump from a cable news personality and members of the local audience.
And, of course, it included long riffs on Trump himself saying things that, to a casual observer, seemed like the kind of things politicians say, quoting the kind of things politicians quote, but which, after a close examination, they are obviously inaccurate or inadequate. An extra hand here, an invented font there, text-like ramblings. ChatGPT for the President.
Nobody cared. One area where Fox’s town hall differed from CNN’s was that it was more explicitly Trump-friendly. Hannity is, according to the most objective assessment, a friend of Trump. In the truest sense, he is a Trump booster, an ally. While CNN’s Kaitlan Collins tried to at least inject some reality into Trump’s political speech-like constructs, Hannity didn’t bother.
And while CNN’s audience was obviously pro-Trump, Fox’s audience was deafeningly so. Trump took the stage to chants of “USA!” as if his existence were a patriotic testament to the nation. His jokes (often indistinguishable from insults) produced raucous laughter and applause. When Hannity meekly suggested that some people, not him, of course! — thought Trump should “tone it down a bit, stop name-calling a little bit,” the audience booed.
There was also another difference: it wasn’t live. When Trump appeared on CNN he made a series of false claims about the 2020 election, claims that Collins could only address after the fact. But Fox, on the hook for three-quarters of a billion dollars after settling a lawsuit centered on false allegations of fraud, wasn’t willing to take that risk. That meant some obvious edits, like when Trump, warming up, was talking about what he planned to do in a second term.
“We would have paid down the debt, we would have cut taxes,” Trump said. “It would be so nice…”
“Let me focus on the issues that — bread and butter issues that affect everybody,” he began his next question, suggesting Trump had been talking about something else during the period. Which, of course, it was. It’s Trump. He would later claim of his 2016 victory that his opponents “probably did things in that election, too,” which “also” refers to the aforementioned comments that viewers didn’t actually see.
The Hannity-Trump chat was not without its moments of revelation.
For example, we were treated to one of the all-time great distillations of Trump’s view of the various investigations into his actions during and after his presidency.
“All I know is this,” he told Hannity, “everything I did was right.”
That’s it, isn’t it? This is the be-all and end-all of what Trump wants to say about it. At other points, he offered his typical defenses of his actions and the nefarious intent of his opponents, claims that have been debunked often and elsewhere.
Sometimes he did it with that typical ChatGPT combination of phrases and ideas that he and his audience knew by heart, even if they didn’t make sense. But the audience wasn’t there to make sure each hand had exactly five fingers. They were there to be inspired and encouraged by the image that Trump created for them, creating something that looked familiar before their eyes.
Fox’s town hall provided a prime example of how Trump simply says what he thinks people want to hear. You may have seen it earlier Thursday, when Trump he pointed to his rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), criticizing how often some people use “woke” as a pejorative.
“It’s just a term they use,” he said at an event. “Half the people can’t even define it. They don’t know what it is.”
Then he was with Hannity.
“There’s a lot going on with our military, with the awakening and all that nonsense,” he said, “they’re not learning how to fight and protect us from some very bad people. They want to go wake up. They want to go wake up. This it’s all they talk about now.”
Hannity, of course, didn’t press him. The audience applauded. That’s how it works with Trump. DeSantis is bad because he says “he woke up” and an audience applauds. The military are bad because they’ve woken up, another audience cheers. Trump has dominated the flow and mood of political discourse, even if his comments are inconsistent over the course of a few hours.
Besides that and the “everything I did was right” line, there was one other thing that really came out of his discussion with Hannity. I admit this is because I’ve spent years closely following what Trump says and does, but I think it’s pretty amazing once he’s elected.
For now, Trump and his opponents are trying to find out how are the primary debates. The candidate has suggested in the past that he did not need to participate, reflecting his approach both in 2020 and at the end of the 2016 debates.
That context is important because of something he said to Hannity.
“All of a sudden, people are talking about nuclear weapons all the time,” he said. “I wouldn’t let people talk about it. I had somebody come down from MIT. I was talking about it. My uncle was a great professor for many years at MIT, and I got somebody. And I’m like, ‘What would you say? Like, during the nuclear weapons debate?'”
“He looked at me,” Trump continued. “He said, ‘Sir, don’t talk about it.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said: ‘There’s nothing you can say. It’s so powerful and so extraordinary. The best thing you can do is not talk about them.’
People familiar with Trump will recognize the line “I had a smart uncle” because he’s said it long before. They’ll also recognize the “sir” story, an easy explanation for when Trump is making up an interaction with someone else. They may even have heard him use that line to avoid talking about nuclear weapons, which came up after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine and since Trump has tried to imply that the president’s approach Biden at war is leading inexorably to World War III.
But here he says something I hadn’t noticed before: This MIT anecdotal expert told him not to mention nuclear weapons during a debate.
During the 2016 primaries, Trump generally performed decently in the debates because 1) he was on stage with many other candidates, all of whom got some time to speak, and 2) he generally just did his anti- -left and anti-elite. But there was one moment that was obviously embarrassing for him, which revealed how little homework he had done.
“What is your priority among our nuclear triad?” moderator Hugh Hewitt asked him during the debate in December 2015. The triad it consists of the U.S.’s underwater, airborne, and silo-based nuclear arsenals, which you may not know, but you’re not running for president.
Trump didn’t know either.
“First of all,” he replied, “I think we need someone who we can absolutely trust, who is fully accountable, who really knows what he’s doing. That’s so powerful and so important.”
Then a riff on Iraq. Hewitt pressed him: But what about the triad?
“I think, to me, nuclear is just about power,” Trump replied. “The devastation is very important to me.”
Hewitt turned to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who eagerly answered the question as intended.
It was humiliating. this stimulated articles critical of Trump and his candidacy. And now Trump, it seems, has an explanation: A guy at MIT said, “Sir, don’t talk about it.”
If the intent here was to explain this gaffe—which, given Trump’s eternal lack of subtlety, seems like a fair assumption—it reinforces why Trump doesn’t want to debate. Why risk being clowned by some other Florida politician in front of a large television audience?
After all, ChatGPT only looks like easy mistakes when someone who knows what they’re doing looks at their output.
