When AI Meets Politics: The Strange Case of Fake Alien Healing Tech
The internet has given us many things - instant global communication, access to vast repositories of knowledge, and the ability to order coffee beans from small roasters in Brunswick at 2am. It’s also given us the spectacle of a former US president sharing AI-generated videos promoting fictional alien healing technology, only to delete them after being thoroughly mocked online.
I’ve been following this bizarre story with a mixture of fascination and concern. The whole episode feels like something out of a science fiction parody, complete with references to “med beds” - supposedly alien technology that can cure any ailment. The fact that this wasn’t shared by some random conspiracy theorist in a Facebook group, but by someone who held the highest office in America (and might again), really drives home how weird our timeline has become.
What struck me most wasn’t just the absurdity of the content itself, but how quickly the online community mobilised to fact-check and debunk it. Someone in the comments noted the frustrating lack of screenshots in the original reporting - a valid point about digital journalism in our age of ephemeral social media posts. Once the video disappeared, it became much harder to analyse exactly what was being promoted. This highlights a real challenge we’re facing: how do we document and respond to misinformation that can vanish at the click of a delete button?
The Stargate SG-1 references in the discussion threads brought a smile to my face, I’ll admit. There’s something beautifully absurd about comparing real-world political figures to fictional alien parasites. But underneath the humour lies a more serious point about how science fiction has shaped our understanding of technology and its potential misuse. When someone mentions “Ba’al” or “Goa’uld” in response to political news, they’re drawing on decades of storytelling that explored themes of mind control, false gods, and the dangers of advanced technology in the wrong hands.
Working in IT, I’m acutely aware of both the incredible potential and the genuine risks that come with AI technology. We’re at a point where creating convincing fake videos is becoming increasingly accessible, while the tools for detecting them lag behind. The environmental cost of training these AI models is staggering - something that keeps me up at night given our climate challenges - yet we’re using this technology to create elaborate hoaxes about alien medical devices.
The international perspective in the comments really resonated with me too. Someone noted that this incident confirms what much of the world already thinks about American politics, and frankly, that’s hard to argue with. Living here in Australia, we often watch American political theatre with a combination of bewilderment and concern, knowing that what happens over there inevitably affects us all.
What really troubles me is how this episode illustrates our collective vulnerability to technological manipulation. We’re entering an era where the line between authentic and artificial content is increasingly blurred, and our political discourse is happening on platforms designed to reward engagement over truth. The speed at which misinformation can spread, combined with the ease of creating convincing fake content, creates a perfect storm for confusion and manipulation.
Yet there’s also something encouraging about how quickly the online community responded. The mockery wasn’t just cruel for the sake of it - it was a form of collective fact-checking, a social immune response to obviously false information. People shared better sources, made jokes that highlighted the absurdity, and ultimately forced the removal of the misleading content. It shows that while technology can be used to deceive, it can also empower communities to push back against deception.
The challenge moving forward is ensuring we maintain this kind of critical thinking as AI-generated content becomes more sophisticated. We need better digital literacy education, more robust verification systems, and perhaps most importantly, we need to preserve our collective sense of healthy skepticism. When someone claims to have access to alien healing technology, our first response should be to ask for peer-reviewed evidence, not to share it uncritically.
This whole episode serves as a reminder that in our rush to embrace new technologies, we mustn’t lose sight of the fundamental importance of truth and accountability in public discourse. Whether it’s AI-generated videos or claims about miraculous medical devices, we all have a role to play in maintaining the quality of information in our digital commons. Sometimes that means being the person who asks for screenshots, sometimes it means making a Stargate reference that cuts through the nonsense with humour, and sometimes it just means taking a moment to think before we click “share.”