A new White House history exhibit has drawn fire from historians for using AI to generate fake quotes from founding fathers.
NPR reported Wednesday that the White House unveiled a striking new history exhibit, "The Founders Museum," which was presented in collaboration with the far‑right media group PragerU and was housed within the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House.
The display features 82 original paintings depicting figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Betsy Ross, alongside more than 40 AI‑generated short videos in which Founding Fathers were animated to relay their stories, available both onsite and online.
READ MORE: 'Trump takes this snub personally': Conservative mocks 'saddest little dictator'
The White House has asserted that AI brought “these people, places and events … to life, making history engaging to Americans across the country.”
But historians have expressed concern. William G. Thomas, vice president of the research division at the American Historical Association, was quoted in the report as acknowledging the project’s ambition. However, he warned that AI could reshape historical figures’ words and stories without a clear factual basis.
Brown University history professor Karin Wulf told WGBH News that some portrayals — such as that of Mercy Otis Warren — felt watered down, reducing her critical voice to bland patriotic platitudes.
“In the video, it acknowledges that she’s a writer, and that writing wasn’t something that women were encouraged to do, certainly in public,” Wulf says. “But it then has her say these kind of pablum pieces about patriotism and liberty that are so much less stringent and so much less potent than what she actually said at the time," she said.
READ MORE: 'We have a problem': CNN data guru sounds alarm as 70% of Americans abandon core value
One AI video stood out. It featured John Adams declaring, “Facts do not care about your feelings,” a phrase popularized by modern conservative commentators like Ben Shapiro.
Moreover, Samuel Adams is presented as saying he was labeled a “troublemaker,” a term that only came into use decades after his death and didn’t enter common usage until well into the 20th century.
PragerU’s CEO, Marissa Streit, defended the project in comments to NPR, saying it had been developed through a joint effort involving White House experts, PragerU scholars and widely referenced historical sources.
According to the report, Streit also plans to take the exhibit on the road using mobile museum trucks and encouraged its adoption in schools, state capitols, and embassies leading up to America’s 250th anniversary in 2026.
READ MORE: 'Disgrace': Fox sparks outrage by cutting off Epstein presser to run 'counter-programming'
Last month, President Donald Trump ordered a sweeping review of the Smithsonian museums, demanding their exhibits align with a more celebratory portrayal of American history. The president complained in a Truth Social post that they currently focus too much on “how bad slavery was” and lack optimism about the country's achievements.
His remarks were strongly denounced by historians who said he was trying to "whitewash history" by going after the Smithsonian.