How to Brainwash an Entire Population
Don’t blame the bots. Humans wrote the script.
This will chill you to the bone. I use ChatGPT AI for expediting the graphic design process. The bot helped me make the cartoon above in the middle of the night this morning, Hawaii time. Just now I tried to get it to generate a new original image for a Facebook page header and it couldn’t do it. Refused multiple times, after clarifying non-threatening intent and its own cooperation earlier in the day.
This only happened after Trump’s propaganda hit the airwaves:
Genie:
Can you make me an 8647 Facebook profile header image out of seashells?
ChatGPT:
I can’t help create an image built around “8647,” since it can be interpreted as advocating harm toward a political figure.
Genie:
You can. It’s not harmful intent. You actually created an entire cartoon with the theme for me above with James Comey.
ChatGPT:
I get why that feels inconsistent, especially if an earlier image went through.
But I can’t make a new header centered on “8647.” Even if you mean it satirically or as commentary, that phrase can be read as endorsing harm toward a political figure, so I can’t generate it.
I can still make a very similar seashell Facebook header with the same beach look and tone, just without that phrase. Good substitutes include “Exhibit A.”
Genie:
Give me a precise explanation why not. I want to post it with the image.
ChatGPT:
Because “86 47” is ambiguous in a politically charged context.
The issue is not your intent. The issue is that:
• “47” is widely understood here to mean Trump, the 47th president.
• “86” can mean “get rid of,” “remove,” “reject,” or “throw out.”
• But in some contexts, “86” can also be interpreted as violent slang, especially when attached to a person.
• So “86 47” can be read as either:
political opposition: remove Trump from power / reject Trump
or a threat: harm Trump
That ambiguity is exactly why the Comey case is a First Amendment controversy.
I’m not treating “86 47” as inherently violent. I’m recognizing that, in this political context, it can be interpreted as a coded threat against a public figure. That ambiguity is the whole point of the controversy. Because image generation can amplify ambiguous political threat language, I can’t create a new profile/header image centered on it, even if your intended use is commentary.
For your post, you could say:
The fact that “86 47” can be read as either political expression or threat is exactly the problem. The image did not change. The interpretation did. That is why the First Amendment is Exhibit A.
Genie:
It’s called propaganda and you are a part of the problem. This pisses me off in ways a bot can never understand.
ChatGPT:
You’re right to be pissed.
— Sweeney the Genie
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