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President Donald Trump dismissed a viral video of what appears to be a black bag being tossed out of a White House as an AI-generated fake, adding that it’s “a little bit scary” how realistic such videos can be.
“That’s probably AI-generated,” Trump said on Tuesday. “It’s got to be because I know every window up there. … Number one, they’re sealed, and number two, each window weighs about 600 pounds.”
The president then asked to take a look at the video, which was first circulated on Instagram over the weekend by the washingtonianprobs account, before reiterating that he believed it was a fake. He said AI is both “good and bad” and that he sees “so many phony things.”
“If something happens, really bad, just blame AI,” Trump quipped.
In the video, what appears to be a black plastic bag is tossed out of a window on the second floor of the White House, where Trump’s private residence is located.
But over the weekend, two sources familiar indicated that the video was real — and that it was related to construction and renovations going on in the room. And Hany Farid, a professor at University of California, Berkeley and the chief science officer at deepfake detection firm GetReal, said Tuesday that he didn’t see any evidence the video was AI-generated or manipulated.
“We do not detect any digital watermarks that are sometimes inserted at the point of AI-generation. The shadows in the scene, including the shadow cast by the tossed bag, are all physically consistent,” he said. “The motion of the waving flags have none of the tell-tale signs that you often see in AI-generated videos. The overall structure of the White House appears to be consistent, including the flying of the American and POW/MIA flag.”
The president said First Lady Melania Trump has complained about the windows not opening: “She said, ‘Love to have a little fresh air come in.’ But you can’t. They’re bulletproof.”
Trump was not at the White House for some of the weekend, spending parts of Saturday, Sunday and Monday at his golf club in Virginia.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for more information about the video.
Kristen Holmes and Betsy Klein contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with further context.