{"id":342394,"date":"2026-07-16T17:28:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/342394\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T17:28:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:28:27","slug":"duval-county-school-board-candidate-clarence-james-sparks-ai-controversy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/342394\/","title":{"rendered":"Duval County School Board candidate Clarence James sparks AI controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Duval County School Board candidate Clarence James is speaking out regarding his campaign using artificial intelligence-generated images. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The latest mailer for the District 6 candidate features an AI-generated depiction of a school police officer. While the figure in the uniform strongly resembles James, it is not actually him. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cYou could clearly tell it\u2019s not really him in the picture, which is a mess,\u201d said Duval voter Christopher James after viewing the flyer. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsjax.com\/live-breaking\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsjax.com\/live-breaking\/\" target=\"_blank\">&gt;&gt;&gt; STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE &lt;&lt;&lt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Clarence James said that the use of a generic AI figure was a choice meant to avoid ethical conflicts rather than deceive the public. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThe AI was generated of a generic police uniform, has SPS on it for School Police, Sergeant rank, and the individual resembles me,\u201d James said. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t want my face on that image because I didn\u2019t want it to be misperceived that I\u2019m endorsed by the Duval County School Police Department.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">James confirmed that his campaign released two separate flyers: one featuring a real photograph of him in a suit, and the controversial AI-generated version. He emphasized that his goal was to highlight his professional background and platform. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cI wasn\u2019t trying to use any type of trickery to make people think that that is actually me,\u201d James stated. \u201cI wanted the message to be that there\u2019s an active school police sergeant that\u2019s willing to take the pay cut, that\u2019s willing to go out there and fight to make our institution safer.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">[DOWNLOAD: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsjax.com\/mobile-apps\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The controversy comes<a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsjax.com\/news\/local\/duval-school-board-candidate-used-ai-create-black-supporters-campaign-photo\/EDYHTMSAHNAIPODGGGOKIPRSHE\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsjax.com\/news\/local\/duval-school-board-candidate-used-ai-create-black-supporters-campaign-photo\/EDYHTMSAHNAIPODGGGOKIPRSHE\/\"> just weeks after James\u2019 campaign faced criticism<\/a> for another AI-generated image that appeared to show a large group of black supporters attending a church fish fry. But in reality, he was standing with two friends. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">James says that the image was posted without his approval and was removed weeks after it surfaced as soon as he learned about it. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cI don\u2019t need to AI any people of color in any photo. I have support of the black community; I have support of their community in its entirety,\u201d said James. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">James says moving forward, they won\u2019t be using AI images anymore. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">[SIGN UP: <a href=\"https:\/\/membercenter.actionnewsjax.com\/newsletters\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsjax.com\/mobile-apps\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsjax.com\/mobile-apps\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsjax.com\/video\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Duval County School Board candidate Clarence James is speaking out regarding his campaign using artificial&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,12833,126431,7903,794,140297,140298,969,116,118,117,28473,6489,634,126430],"class_list":["post-342394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-action_news_shack","tag-clarence_james","tag-county","tag-duval","tag-duval_county_school_board_district_6","tag-duval_county_school_police_department","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-james","tag-jessica_salinas","tag-local","tag-school_board"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}