Shit Show

I immediately knew the video of Trump flying over major cities and releasing massive dumps of excrement onto innocent citizens below was AI generated. That kind of travel-related IBS nightmare was way too relatable to be real. Steve Bannon famously advised that the best way to deal with the media was overwhelm them with a firehose of falsehoods, or as he put it, to “flood the zone with shit.” I doubt he imagined being taken this literally. But the social media shitposter in chief has become the AI generated shitposter in chief. This particular AI video was obviously fake. But they won’t all be. We’re heralding in a new era when we are not only unable to discern what’s true, we won’t know what’s real. “After Mr. Trump posted a video that included a fictitious, A.I.-generated arrest of former President Barack Obama, a few users on Truth Social signaled that they were not sure whether the footage was real.” NYT (Gift Article): How Trump Is Using Fake Imagery to Attack Enemies and Rouse Supporters.

+ The problem isn’t just that things that are fake will seem real. It’s also that things that are real can easily be described as being fake. Consider this story from the WSJ (Gift Article): “The Treasury Department instructed employees not to share photos of the demolition of parts of the White House’s East Wing after images of construction equipment dismantling the facade of the building went viral online.” Is it hard to imagine a scenario in which the White House simply describes real photos it doesn’t want seen or shared as being AI-generated? Shit happens. Or does it?