paul carpenter, the musician, showed in nbc news how to do it. it took him 20 minutes and cost $1.it is out there. it is easy to use, and it is impossible to imagine that it won't be used again. joining me now, alex seitz- wald, senior politics reporter for nbc news and the person who broke this story. alex, first of all, hats off for breaking this story. first, tell me you worked, you sat with the magician, paul carpenter, and he showed you how he did this. how easy was it, and do you think you could do it if you wanted to, on your own? >> yeah, alex, that was really my big takeaway from this story. it's very eery to sit in a marriott lobby with a guy you met five minutes ago from the internet and have you spend a few minutes and then type of script and have what sounds like your voice coming out of a computer saying something that you never said which is exactly what he did. and it was not part of a sophisticated well-funded cloak and dagger operation. this was essentially a guy goofing around on the internet. he was paid $150 to do this to spoof the biden voice, and it became a

paul carpenter, the musician, showed in nbc news how to do it. it took him 20 minutes and cost $1.t is easy to use, and it is impossible to imagine that it won't be used again. joining me now, alex seitz- wald, senior politics reporter for and d.c. news in the person who broke this story. alex, first of all, hats off for breaking this story. first, tell me you worked, you sat with the magician, paul carpenter, and he showed you how he did this. how easy was it, and do you think you could do it if you wanted to, on your own? >> yeah, alex, that was really my big takeaway from this story. it's very easy to sit in a merry eight lobby with a guy you met five minutes ago from the internet and have you spend a few minutes and then type of script and have what sounds like your voice coming out of a computer saying something that you never said which is exactly what he did. and it was not part of a sophisticated well funded cloak and dagger operation. this was essentially a guy goofing around on the internet. he was paid $150 to do this for the biden campaign, to spoof the biden voice, and

a new orleans magician named paul carpenter was paid to use ai to impersonate president biden.nder, what you are about to hear is ai generated and not actually the president. >> a bunch of ma -- save your vote. >> that was not the president. it sounded a heck of a lot like him. carpenter who holds world records showed nbc news how he made the robocalls. alex spoke with carpenter. thanks for joining us. what did you learn about this robocall? >> well, a lot. paul carpenter brought the receipts. text messages, venmo transactions. he sent me the audio file. it all corroborated the rather fanciful story he started telling me, which is that he was paid $150 by a consultant who happened to be working for dean philip's campaign, biden's challenger, and that he produced these calls and two others before that. the phillips campaign said they had no knowledge of this. they disavowed it. they threatened to take legal action against the former contractor whose name is steve cramer. paul said he wanted to show how easy it was. it took 20 minutes and cost $1. >> is he facing any consequences

carpenter says he's the ai impersonation of president joe biden. his is a political consultant hired him for the job in january, philip says that he didn't know how the audio he generated would be distributed because he regrets his involvement and wants to warn the public about how easy it is, to use ai to mislead people. >>> turning to be climate in crisis, a wave of intense rainstorms has accelerated landslides and contributed to damaging coastal erosion in california. the state drying out but impact from a second season of extreme rainfall could be felt for years to come. scientists say that climate change is intensifying rates of rainfall and spurring sea level rise, that makes droughts more severe and it is contributing to some of the reshaping of the landscape. the u.s. geological survey report found that southern california could lose up to two thirds of its beaches, by the year 2100. >> the 22 two paris olympics going green. the goal to cut the carbon footprint and have , compared to previous games. >>> a new project one step closer to the

the magician for hire here, paul carpenter tells nbc news that he was paid by a consultant, a guy namedhillips to make that fake biden robocall. phillips and his campaign said their relationship ended weeks ago and the magician who spoke to my colleague is warning people not to be so easily tricked by ai, adding that people are not ready for it. joining me now "politico" white house correspondent and playbook co-author, eugene daniels, fred upton, and brendan buck, the former communication adviser to house speaker paul ryan and john boehner. let's start with this new reporting in particular. there's a lot to start with, not the least of which is the fact like something like this could happen. the back story is it's an entirely different line. ai is a threat heading into 2024? >> yeah, as soon as i read this story, i said why not a magician created this for new hampshire. i think, you know, when you talk to the campaigns, when you talk to this white house, they're extremely concerned about how ai currently and more importantly in the future will impact the way that voters engage in campa

paul carpenter holds world records in fork bending and straitjacket escapes.ive named steve kramer, who until recently, it was a consultant of biden's democratic challenger dean phillips. now, the magician showed nbc news alex -- how cheap and easy his work was. >> i can have you say anything i want. >> how about and i love nbc, and my bosses. >> hi, i'm a robot version of alex, and i love nbc and my bosses. >> that's -- >> sounds exactly like -- >> that magician says he did not know his fake biden work was for a political ad, but he adds, quote, i'm not showing you anything you can't learn how to do on youtube. and you thought 2024 was really bad? guess what? it's about to get much worse. donna edwards he's a former democratic congresswoman of maryland, and david jolly is a former republican congressman of florida, who has, and fortunately for me, left the party. but that's okay, i still love him. both join me now. donna, so, the dean phillips tweeted out today that he is disgusted by the robocall. steve kramer, the philips campaign, now former, consultant, d

this magician, paul carpenter showed me exactly how he says he created the fake robocall using my voice of my voice on you tube, uploaded it to software called yellow labs, paid $1 for a trial subscription. and in a few minutes, he was typing a script and i was hearing words in what sounded like my voice that i had never spoken. so this is shockingly easy to do. it's very accessible, and that's part of the reason he says he wanted to go public. the trickier thing to unravel is who paid him to do this. he says he was paid by a new orleans political consultant named steve kramer, and he provided copious documentation to support that claim. kramer has not denied this. kramer very notably was on the payroll of deen phillips presidential campaign at this time. joe biden's main primary challenger. kramer was paid over $250,000 for work to help get phillips on the ballot in two states. the phillips campaign says he essentially went rogue. they have no knowledge of this. they disavow it, and say they might pursue legal action. i have no reason to doubt they were kept in the dark about this as w

it's a strange answer involving a norlin street magician kyung lah has details paul carpenter, new orleans street magician, wanted to be famous for work bending. >> we could actually see it looks like it's bending, but instead, he's making national headlines, tricked himself. he says, in a political scandal around this fake robocall of president biden, what a bunch of malarkey sent to more than 20,000 new hampshire residents urging democrats to not vote in last month's primary it's important that you save your vote for the november election. >> did you know when you made that recording how it was going to be used? >> none none whatsoever. on a magician and a hypnotist, i'm not i'm not in the political realm i just got thrown into this thing. >> carpenter says he was playing around with ai apps, getting paid a few hundred bucks here here in there to make fake recordings. one of those paying according to text messages shared with cnn, was political operative steve kramer, than employed by democratic presidential candidate dean phillips. >> no problem. send me script. i send your recording, s

carpenter, new orleans street magician, wanted to be famous for fork bending. >> we could actually see it looks like it's bending, but instead, he's making national headlines, tricked himself. he says in a political scandal around this fake robocall of president biden won a bunch of malarkey sent to more than 20,000 new hampshire residents urging democrats to not vote in last month's primary sorry, it's important that you save your vote for the november election >> did you know when you made that recording how it was going to be used? >> none none whatsoever. i'm a magician in a hypnotist. i'm not i'm not in the political realm i just got thrown into this thing. >> carpenter says he was playing around with ai apps, getting paid a few hundred the bucks here and there to make fake recordings. one of those paying according to text messages shared with cnn, was political operative steve kramer, than employed by democratic presidential candidate dean phillips. >> no problem. send me script. i send your recording, send me some money >> how easy is all of this for a self-taught guy? >> five m

carpenter, new orleans street magician, wanted to be famous for fork bending. >> we could actually see it looks like it's bending. >> but instead, he's making national headlines, tricked himself. he says, in a political scandal around this fake robocall of president biden, what a bunch of malarkey sent to more than 20,000 new hampshire residents urging democrats to not vote in last'' important that you save your vote for the november election. >> did you know when you made that recording how it was going to be used? >> none none whatsoever. i'm a magician in a hypnotist. i'm not i'm not in the political realm i just got thrown into this thing. >> carpenter says he was playing around with ai apps. any paid a few hundred bucks here during their to make fake recordings, one of those paying according to text messages shared with cnn, was political operative steve kramer, than employed by democratic presidential candidate dean phillips. >> no problems. send me script. i send your recording, send me some money. >> how easy is all of this for a self-taught guy >> five minutes >> ten topline,

carpenter, a new orleans street magician carpenter told cnn's kyung lah that he was hired by kramer to create the fake audio carpenter said the calls were generated using an ai tool and it took less than a half an hour to create and distribute. i'm joined now by cnn contributor and podcast host kara swisher and all around genius, i'm sorry, her new book burn book, a tech love story is out today. it chronicles the world's most powerful players in tech and how they went from wanting to change the world to breaking it instead. yeah, powerful warlords, ofs, sorry i do want to talk first about the robo calls. i heard these myself when i was in new hampshire, they were on local news and i thought it's houston. we have a problem if they target the right people, if they do it at the last minute this could have a huge impact on an election. why does it always seem like congress is behind the eight-ball? this is something we know could happen, like congress could do precisely. i mean, it's always after the fact whether it's swatting, there's all kinds of regional versions of swatting there's

it's a strange answer involving in new orleans street magician kyung lah has to tell us >> paul >> carpenter, new orleans street magician, wanted to be famous for fork bending. >> we could actually see it looks like it's bending, but instead, he's making national headlines, tricked himself. he says, in a political scandal around this fake robocall of president biden won a bunch of malarkey sent to more than 20,000 new hampshire residents urging democrats to not vote in last month's primary it's important that you save your vote for the november election. >> did you know when you made that recording how it was going to be used >> none none whatsoever. >> i'm a magician and a hypnotist. i'm not i'm not in the political realm i just got thrown into this thing. >> carpenter says he was playing around with ai apps, getting paid a few hundred bucks you're in there to make fake recordings. one of those paying according to text messages shared with cnn, was political operative steve kramer, than employed by democratic presidential candidate dean phillips. >> no, no problem. send me script. i send yo