Pentagon’s recruitment boast unravels as ‘strikingly beautiful’ soldiers revealed as AI
The Department of Defense claimed on social media that its recruitment of women into the armed forces is going great. The problem, however, is that when they bragged about it in an interview, artificial intelligence photos were used.
AI-generated images were part of an effort to "make it seem like the government’s recruitment efforts are actually working," The New Republic reported Friday.
Edith Olmsted wrote that a "propaganda segment" appeared on Matt Gaetz's show on Thursday, where DOD press secretary Kingsly Wilson cheered "incredible success" bringing women to the DOD.
“These numbers are fantastic. Under the previous administration, we had about 16,000 female recruits last year. Now we’ve got upwards of 24,000,” Wilson said.
Images showed "photographs" of what Olmsted called "strikingly beautiful and notably diverse female officers." However, a watermark appeared in the corner of each image showing that they were images created by Elon Musk's AI named Grok. The writer called the recruits "nothing but ghosts in the machine."
The DOD distanced itself from the photos, saying that they didn't make them. Later in the show, Gaetz issued a statement, confessing, “The DOD didn’t give us these images; Grok did. And we’ll use better judgment going forward.
The new numbers from DOD are curious, as a 2024 report said that the government saw a "surge" of female recruitment of nearly 10,000. It was an 18% increase at the time. There has been a recruitment slump among male enlistment over the years, Military.com remarked in January. The Trump DOD appears to be editing those numbers to 16,000.
The data has not been fully released publicly, so it cannot be fact-checked for accuracy.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attacked the idea of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" in the military, alleging standards have declined and, as a result, men have been driven away from the military, The Associated Press reported in January.
"I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated," he told podcaster Shawn Ryan on Nov. 7, 2024, the AP recalled.
In his book, Hegseth wrote, “women cannot physically meet the same standards as men.”