New York City mayoral hopeful Andrew Cuomo has been widely labeled as racist after his official X account posted \u2013 and then deleted \u2013 an AI-generated ad depicting \u201ccriminals for Zohran Mamdani\u201d.<\/p>\n
Not even 20 minutes into the second mayoral debate, Cuomo\u2019s official account, @andrewcuomo, tweeted the video. It was reshared by many before being deleted.<\/p>\n
The Cuomo and Mamdani campaigns did not immediately respond to the Guardian\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
The video, which has been saved and reshared by various people, runs a little over two minutes and opens with an AI iteration of Mamdani, first running through the streets of New York<\/a> and then eating rice with his hands.<\/p>\n It goes on to show a Black man in a keffiyeh shoplifting, a man abusing a woman, a sex trafficker, a drug dealer, and others, all showing their support for Mamdani.<\/p>\n Reaction to the video, which was re-uploaded<\/a> by journalist Prem Thakker, was fast and negative.<\/p>\n Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, a grassroots organization that advocates for gun violence prevention, called<\/a> it \u201cso gross and full of racist stereotypes, including a Black man dressed like a pimp trafficking a car full of white women. Cuomo needs to be thrown in the ash heap of history.\u201d<\/p>\n The AI-generated ad was condemned as \u2018next-level fascist AI slop\u2019. Illustration: X<\/p>\n Laila Al-Arian, executive producer of Al Jazeera\u2019s Fault Lines, pointed to the imagery of the keffiyeh and asked<\/a> on X: \u201cHow are Palestinian New Yorkers supposed to feel about this, or do they not matter?\u201d<\/p>\n Benjam\u00edn Schultz-Figueroa, associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Seattle University, wrote<\/a> on Blsky: \u201cThis is next level fascist AI slop. It\u2019s also such a weird \u2018greatest hits\u2019 of scary stereotypes from NYC history.\u201d<\/p>\n Antonia Hylton, co-anchor of MSNBC\u2019s The Weekend: Primetime, said<\/a>: \u201cWell this is sad. And pretty racist.\u201d<\/p>\n This video follows a trend from the Cuomo campaign, who have published a handful of AI-generated videos in the lead up to 4 November. In one early October video, Cuomo was seen performing various jobs around New York City including driving a subway car, trading on the New York stock exchange and washing high-rise windows.<\/p>\n