AI incident ·
Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden Reportedly Posted Grok Imagine Deepfakes Depicting Opponent Rebecca Cooke Saying Things She Did Not Say
In brief
An AI system built by xAI, Synthetic video generation technology developers and 3 others and deployed by Synthetic media creators, Public figures and 6 others allegedly harmed Voters, Rebecca Cooke and 5 others.
- Risk domain
- Not classified
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 1 report
What happened
Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden repeatedly posted Grok Imagine-generated videos depicting Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke saying statements she did not make. Cooke called the clips deceptive and defamatory; Van Orden's campaign described them as obvious AI-generated satire. Cooke's attorneys later sent a cease-and-desist alleging the videos were intended to mislead voters and harm her reputation.
Laws that address this harm
No recorded instrument yet addresses this use case where it happened. See the open queue.
Matched from the record's risk domain and country to the instruments recorded here. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
News reports (1)
Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged deployer
- Synthetic media creators Public figures Politicians in the United States Politicians Information manipulation actors in the United States Information manipulation actors Derrick Van Orden Deepfake creators
- Alleged developer
- xAI Synthetic video generation technology developers Synthetic media generation technology developers Synthetic audio generation technology developers Deepfake technology developers
- Alleged harmed party
- Voters Rebecca Cooke Public figures Politicians in the United States Politicians Political candidates targeted by deepfakes Epistemic integrity
AI systems implicated
X (Twitter)Synthetic video generation technologySynthetic media technologySynthetic audio generation technologySocial media platformsGrok ImagineDeepfake technology
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
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- Risk subdomain
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- Causal entity
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Other incidents involving Synthetic media creators
- Purportedly AI-Generated Image Reportedly Prompted Police Alert and Search for Nonexistent Venomous Viper in Santa Ana, California
- Russia-Linked Matryoshka Operators Reportedly Circulated Deepfake Mother Jones Video Impersonating Editor Clara Jeffery and Falsely Claiming DNC Paid CNN $259 Million
- Stanford University Acknowledged Using AI to Alter Student Photo for Campus Banners, Replacing Hispanic Student With Black Woman
- AI-Generated Images Purporting to Show Donald Trump Kissing White House Aide Natalie Harp Went Viral on Social Media
- Russia-Linked Matryoshka Influence Operation Reportedly Used AI-Cloned Celebrity Voices and Fabricated News-Style Videos to Target Democratic Candidates Ahead of 2026 U.S. Midterms
- Delhi Man Allegedly Used AI to Create and Circulate Obscene Images of College Acquaintance
Source record: incident #1721 on the AI Incident Database · all 1 report