Anyone who knows me knows I’m a bit of a technophobe. I’m the friend who clicks on to a different WhatsApp thread and can’t get back again. I’m the teacher who can draw a world map outline quicker than she can search/download/display a digital one. I’m the writer who has never yet resorted to a grammar-checking app because if I’m breaking a rule of spelling or syntax, I’m doing it on purpose.
I’m also an opinion-columnist who rages against the machine of AI content-generation. A reader who DNFs online articles because I can sense fake writing by the cardboardness of its flavour. I’m probably going to close my Linkedin account because Linkedin keeps offering to “help” me write my posts with AI. Also because Linkedin is crowded with people (?) who evidently are using AI to help them write their posts.
But the thing that’s troubling me most just lately is what’s happening on Facebook. AI-generated images captioned as photos, designed to tap into the shallow sentimentality of all the most ignorant, gullible and self-satisfied people. It’s spam, because on Facebook’s own words, it is “encouraging people to engage with content under false pretences”.
“But there’s no actual harm in it,” say the people who’ve liked some pretty picture of a dog or a child. “It’s still a beautiful image.”
I don’t agree that there’s no harm in it. I believe there is real harm in losing the distinction between real and fake information–of any type.
In one picture, an improbably well-groomed dog stands in the rain with a pathetic facial expression, and the caption claims that it’s his birthday and he needs to feel celebrated. Something like this will pick up maybe 17 000 responses… and that leaves me wondering: how many of these respondents are bots, and how many are humans silly enough to suppose that (a) it’s a real dog, and (b) a dog will derive any benefit from their emojis? I can’t help suspecting it could be some sort of trap: algorithms designed to identify people witless enough to be worth targeting with industrial-scale scams.
When I see spam like this, I take a few seconds to report and block it if I can. When any of my friends post fake pictures of cute children or plaintive animals, I call them out on it, and I unfollow them if they carry on sharing fakes. Maybe you get a little buzz of self-congratulation when you indulge in collective sentimentality? That’s not a good thing. Ultimately, it’s a very toxic thing indeed.
Here’s an example: a series of pictures in which a small, smiling boy poses in among a bunch of mud-and-straw huts, holding up an amazing model created from sticks, stones or maybe discarded plastic bottles. What could possibly be wrong with such a cute picture?
Well, the subtext I’m discerning is that poor children in some unspecified foreign country can derive joy and fulfillment through creating art out of your rubbish. It makes you feel less guilty about your own use of disposable plastics. “So talented,” you comment, and you get a little dopamine-hit of complacency because you’ve displayed false generosity towards whoever you see as “the poor”. Yesterday I read a comment that went something like this: “They should sell their art to some museum and then we wouldn’t have to send money aid to Africa any more.”
Why would you need someone to tell you that this is wrong? Sense and decency should have told you that fakery is intrinsically wrong. You should not have to see how toxic it can get before you decide not to accept it. Stop accepting it.
For better or worse (I think it’s worse), we’ve got AI entities capable of putting out words and pictures now. Laws are lagging far behind, and fake content is masquerading as reality. There’s not much an individual can do to stem the tide. But the least, the very least you can do is to be sincere in what you share and how you interact with online material.
Fiona M Jones 