AI Mark Robinson Is Coming to a Television Near You

AI Mark Robinson has 14 fingers. His face seems to float above a body that doesn’t move. And the smiling children behind him melt and reform, their poor virtual souls twisting together like wet digital clay in a drug-fueled nightmare.

Starting today, this version of Lt. Governor Robinson is terrorizing television broadcasts across the state as part of a $1 million ad buy by a Raleigh millionaire and his satire PAC.

Earlier this month, Todd Stiefel’s Americans for Prosparody PAC spent thousands on a mobile billboard in the state capital featuring an AI-generated version of Robinson’s voice. The new ad features that same voice as well as an AI-generated visual of the candidate saying some real and some exaggerated quotes from his past.

Over the course of a minute, AI Robinson poses in front of an Illuminati conspiracy theory board, touts the “common sense ideas” that “climate change is a hoax just like 9/11 and Pearl Harbor,” and says “wicked people need to be killed” while severed heads briefly rain from the top of the screen.

And it’s already caught Robinson’s eye—last week, in an interview where he denied CNN’s “salacious tabloid lies” about his apparent and foul comments on a porn site, Robinson briefly seemed to cast blame on Stiefel .

“There’s been over $1 million spent on me through AI by a billionaire’s son who’s bound and determined to destroy me,” Robinson said. “The things that people can do with the internet now is incredible.”

And while Stiefel isn’t likely responsible for the posts under Robinson’s username that date back to 2008 (“We do not have the technology to send a Terminator back in time to create pro-slavery posts on a porn site in Robinson’s name,” Stiefel said in a press release), the millionaire dermatological pharmaceutical heir is definitely responsible for the most bizarre political ad in the state to date.

“I’m AI Mark Robinson reminding you these are all things the real Mark Robinson has said and done,” the ungodly creation concludes .

Ethically, the ad brings North Carolina politics into uncharted territory.

There are no federal laws on the use of AI in elections, but at least 26 states have passed or are considering laws that would regulate the use of AI in politics. North Carolina’s draft of the law would require creators to disclose that the ad was “created in whole or in part with the use of generative artificial intelligence,” which Stiefel’s ad already does. (It begins with an all-caps note that “A.I. TECHNOLOGY WAS USED” in the creation of the ad.)

The creators of an AI robocall in New Hampshire, which sounded like Joe Biden and told people not to vote in the primary, are facing criminal charges and an FCC fine . But unlike a deepfake, this AI Robinson clearly does not pretend to be the real Robinson. And like, say, Saturday Night Live , Americans for Prosparody is pretty solidly protected by the First Amendment.

Stiefel insists that this use of AI is ethical because it only says things that the real Robinson has said or posted online, with some exaggerations.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein’s campaign has previously disavowed the Americans for Prosparody ads, saying that “any use of AI to mislead voters is unequivocally wrong and has no place in this campaign,” and Robinson campaign spokesperson Michael Lonergan previously told INDY that “Stiefel’s low-rent website is full of fake clips and outrageous lies. North Carolina voters will see right through it.”

The ad was created and scheduled for television long before the latest round of revelations about Robinson’s past. But Stiefel says the new report wasn’t that surprising.

“We knew he loved the Nazis,” Stiefel tells INDY . “He’s had a post on Facebook for years about how this picture of Mussolini and Hitler is his favorite historic photo .”

And Robinson’s accusation that Stiefel is “determined to destroy him” rings true. “First of all, no mercy for Nazis,” Stiefel says. “He’s staying in this race, and as long as he’s staying in the race, we’re staying in the race.”

Stiefel is an unaffiliated voter, but has donated at least $40,000 to Democratic candidates and PACs in 2024 alone and at least $18,000 to Stein since 2016. For one 2023 donation, Stiefel listed his occupation as “provocateur.” His money comes from his family’s company, Stiefel Laboratories, which was bought by multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company GSK in 2009.

Destroying Robinson is not Stiefel’s first crusade. He previously founded the Stiefel Freethought Foundation to champion the separation of church and state. During the pandemic, he hired a plane to fly over a Raleigh anti-masking protest with a banner that read “fewer graves if we reopen in waves.”

Robinson’s campaign may look dead in the water, but he still has the official support of the state Republican Party, which posted on Twitter that the left is “trying to demonize him via personal attacks” and “Republicans will win on November 5.”

Robinson wasn’t invited to former President Donald Trump’s Wilmington rally last weekend—and the man whose endorsement once lifted Robinson to lieutenant governor didn’t mention him at all.

On Stiefel’s Americans for Prosparody Facebook page, Robinson supporters have commented in recent days that they’re still planning to vote for him anyway. Stiefel says that’s why the PAC hasn’t pulled the ad—besides, they’d already spent the money.

“Even if you don’t believe the CNN story, what about the dude’s own Facebook page?” says Stiefel. “What about all the other stuff out there?”

Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at chase@indyweek.com . Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com .

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