Technology, Connected - Iran Show America How To Use AI For Propaganda

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Iran made an AI Lego propaganda video about the United States. It was kind of funny. The US replied with Grand Theft Auto, Wii Sports, and Call of Duty. It wasn't. Children's toys and video games to push a distorted view of war at kids and morons on Twitter. Oh how they'll laugh. This is our first reaction video. Probably be our last.--🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠📺 Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠🏠 Follow us on ⁠X⁠🏠 Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: [e-mail](00:00) What Is Propaganda?(00:36) Iran Lego Propaganda Video(02:45) Reaction(06:55) Whitehouse GTA Iran War Video(09:07) Epic Fury - US Wii Sports Video(13:22) Call Of Duty Iran War Video

Propaganda is a deliberate manipulation of information, imagery or narrative to influence the emotions, attitudes or behaviour of a target audience. The target audience in today's thinking on paper is the American and Iranian populations and the wider global audience. We're watching some modern day propaganda as part of our AI and the war machine season. It's a joyful time at thinking on paper. And we're going to start with Iran. I wonder if Lego have seen that. I was actually just thinking that.

Dude, my heart's racing right now. Like, I can't, wow, I don't even know what to say. Well, so Iran State Media share Lego propaganda video with figures. There's a lot of explosions in that. There's a lot of explosions in that. How's that supposed, who's that aimed at, okay? Is that aimed at, it doesn't feel like it's aimed at the Iranians. It feels like it's aimed at the Americans.

And the global. The global populace. The juxtaposition of the freaking Lego characters in it. Like, I think that is even more of a jarring aspect. Jeez, man. If I look at it as a piece of propaganda, I think it's awful. I think it's very long. Propaganda is a sentence.

Propaganda is an image. We all know the famous World War II image of we need, your country needs you. And you have, it's very short, it's very succinct. That's emotionally draining. I mean, your country needs you. It's supposed to get you hyped. Okay, I want to defend my country. I'm watching that and I'm exhausted.

It's not filling me with the urge to go in fire. It's filling me with the urge to, to go hibernate. I don't know if you put in perspective, if you're that one soldier grabbing kids backpack at a school that just, you know, got decimated. Yeah, that's what drew me in to that side of it

is, you know, how would you feel if, and maybe that's what's designed to do. So to me, propaganda is kind of the Pied Piper tune. It's the, it's the, let me, let me try to, let me try to just get you to blindly follow what I'm doing because I need you to do that. This to me, there was a little bit of story. There's a little bit of, hey, this is kind of what's going on and this has a consequence and that has a consequence and this has a consequence. and, you know, all boils up to all humans on the bad side of the consequences.

All humans. The aesthetic, like Lego. Why Lego? Why, yeah, why Lego? It's almost like those Star Wars Lego films. It has a very young audience. They're targeting a young audience. So an 11-year-old who is familiar with Lego isn't going to understand what that's about.

they're going to think that's cool some of them. They're going to think, oh, cool, it's a Lego film. It's a Lego video. They're blowing shit up. So they're going to, the message is very adult, but it's almost like it can speak to all generations. It's quite scary, that choice of Lego, because they could have chosen,

they could have chosen a more adult video game theme. It seems to be about video games, but they deliberately chose Lego, which, playful comedy with layers and layers of doom and explosions and death. It's kind of weird. It's very weird. And what you said right off the bat, what does Lego think about this?

And, you know, their vehicle, they've created a trusted piece of infrastructure between their brand and people. And now that infrastructure is being hijacked. Yeah. Should watch another one? Jeez. Oh, that's, well, let's watch. So Iran posted that and then the American propaganda machine went into retaliation mode. Who posted this next one?

Is this from like White House Twitter? This is from the White House Twitter and I shouldn't laugh, but they've made it. So White House Twitter. White House Twitter is just, just sounds weird anyway. Here we go again. Here we go again. We go again. Is that Grand Theft Auto?

Yes. Grand Theft Auto. That is Grand Theft Auto. They've used that intro screen and then they cut to the satellite and camera imagery of blowing things up. That feels a really American response to that Iranian Lego video. There's a post I hadn't read the post Operation Epic Fury

Destroy Iran's missile army Destroy Iran's missile arsenal Destroy their navy ensure they never get a nuclear weapon Locked in That's the White House Twitter Locked in So locked in is something that like This is kid language dude

This is 100% Kid language If you ever like I coach a lot of sports And you know Locked in as a reference like I'm ready I'm ready for the field.

I'm ready for the competition. I'm ready. They get locked in when they jump in and play video games. Yo, I'm locked in right now. This is speaking to that generation. Man, who, this is manipulation at a high level. And when I say thoughtful, I'm not saying thoughtful and kind, but they're intentionally using these vehicles to connect with a particular demographic.

Largely, it's, geez. Well, we'll see for this one, but that last one, Grand Theft Auto, it's glamorizing war. It's making war look cool. It's making war look accessible. It's making war look like, it's like a video game. You play it in your bedroom, come to around and do it for yourself. It's almost like a hiring video for the military. There'll be kids, there'll be 14 and 15 year old kids at school right now.

If you've seen this video, it's super cool. Check this out. GTA. And there's a new GTA coming at some point in maybe in about 20 years, but it's going to create type. It's a teenage glamorization of war. And let's have a look at another one from the White House

undefeated Operation Epic Fury March the 12th, 2026. This has got 101.1.8 million views, 23,000 comments, 55,000 reshares, 200,000 likes, 49,000 bookmarks. Fucking out.

This is freaking gross, dude. It's freaking gross. The music, the, the, you know, we effects, like make it, make it, oh, this is fun. It's just a little game. Like, it's nothing to worry about where it dehumanizes. It de-man. Like, I don't know. Where is the fucking humor?

Where, like, let's think about how this came to be. Somebody in the DOW saw the Iran Lego video and I thought, we've got to come back at this. We've got to do this. So they're there, possibly playing we and going, wouldn't it be funny if these pins were Iranian soldiers? What if we, what if we made this? What if instead of me punching the screen, it was me blowing up a refueling station in Iran? Like the thought process that went into that. maybe it's my age.

They're trying to be funny. And yet it's void of anything funny. Modern culture has as tragic of war is, there are funny movies and there are funny books about war. There's one right here behind me. That has no humor in it. And I wonder, is that me? Is that my age?

Is an 18-year-old watching that and laughing? I just feel like it's supposed to be funny and it just isn't. And we've learned this for many of our guests, that the dangers to democracy is the ripping out of the funny gene. Or the co-opting of it or the attempt. I usually have words, dude. I usually have words. Well, we're moving platforms here, Jamie.

We're moving away from Twitter. Look at some of the comments. I'm just curious. Pull that back up and look at some of the comments that are on there. What would, dude, what would Ronald Reagan think about this? What would Dwight Eisenhower think about this? What would MacArthur think about this? What would Winston Churchill on your side?

Do you, I mean? Here we go. Okay, do you do realize this video itself is a war crime? Should we be blowing out these people's names? Oh, right. Me checking this isn't a priority. You might need to, yeah. We're not moving, we are moving platforms.

We're moving to YouTube. Okay. And this one is another from the White House. And this is official. This is from the independent. It's reposting a video that the White House, I looked at this, the White House have taken this down. Gee, I wonder why.

Somebody got a conscience. Okay, this is Call of Duty. My kids have played Call of Duty before, and I think it's pretty prevalent game that's out there. I wonder if those like little call-outs. in there are the same callouts from the game. So these guys, again, are co-opting a vehicle infrastructure that has been built to make war seem less bad

and make it seem more like a game. And this is not what we need. It's not what we need at all, man. This is... Yeah, it's insiduous. It's insiduous. and just, yeah, tiring to watch that. And there's no speaking any of these.

They're all just images that know, no language barrier. Probably why they're doing so well, racking up the millions and the millions of views. Because it's, it's familiar. Even the music, you know, it's like hype music, hype music to glorify war. Like, yeah, I mean, playing these. games is enough. Like I always have conversations with my kids about this kind of stuff. And it's like,

hey, yeah, you play the game. It's a game. But man, it's a game. It's not how the world should operate. It's not how your principles should operate. But right now, they're making the bridge. They're making the connection, essentially saying that it's okay to operate that way. They did to us. Okay, bet. I'm going to do this to you. And it's just like responding in a game. This is, this is, it's a desensitization of death. It's, when you turn war into a game, you strip away the, the fear and the death and the destruction.

And you replace it with some kind of weird proxy computer game. And it's kind of, it's almost, it's kind of perfect, isn't it? Last week, we were reading the memorandum on the AI war machine, which is when you lead with AI in your war machine, it kind of is gamifying war. It's removing the human from it. The human is sat pressing buttons far from the death zone. It's a lot easier to kill somebody from a thousand miles away than it is when you're. you're in front of them, I assume, having never done either. I don't know.

I don't like it. This is important stuff to know that's going on. And that someone allowed this, someone allowed this. Someone said that this was okay as the voice of the head of the country, the head of the United States. This is okay. Hmm. And they had fun doing it.

Oh, I guarantee there were chest bumps and how. five-fives and stuff, oh, they're going to, where they get a load of this. And maybe the people that are creating it, maybe the people that are creating it are closer to the, to the games than they are the real life situations. And they're just, their enthusiasm is being inauthentically harnessed to,

to create the stuff. Yeah, this, this diabolical shit, man. Wow. Yeah, let's not do this again. Oh, my God. Yeah. Moving on to reaction videos. It's important, though.

I'm glad you brought it up. We're elevating it because, you know, elevating the breakdown of it and what it's doing. Like what this vehicle actually is. This is pure manipulation of existing connectivity to certain demographics. And it's using that to drive a message that perpetuates war over other options, including say peace. All right. I'm going to try to do my best for the rest of this day. shake this off. It's like watching a bad freaking horror movie that you can't get out of your head.

Thanks, Mark. Appreciate it. This is a joint, this is a joint decision from the thinking on paper committee on peace, not war. There you go. It's important to see it from all the angles. People. Join us again next week where your normal viewing will be resumed. Hey, each time, each time we're pushing the boundaries, man. We're sharing what we see. All right.

We're commenting on it as we see it, which I think is important. It's all part and parcel to like figuring out this next step of the world. We're going to a place that's accelerating quickly and got to understand it from all angles. Join us for more AI and the war machine. Until next time, be disruptive. Stay curious. Keep thinking on paper.