Jul 31, 2026, 1:50 AMi hate the reflexive dreary "that's AI" kind of comment under everything that seems too good to be true, but i admit at first i thought this was AI
nope
it's a reversed image of a still from the Charlie Chaplin film "Pay Day" (1922)
(at exactly 21 seconds in)
which is quite incredible
Jul 31, 2026, 6:22 AM
Jul 31, 2026, 6:49 AM@benroyce @etenil @redsad on fedi thats mostly replaced by, that's a @NanoRaptor
@benroyce@mastodon.social @etenil@toot.cat @redsad@ohai.social Photoshop has become legitimate way to fake things? I don't know. I mean... Faking things, pretending they're real... Not cool. But isn't this a GIMP/Photoshop/Krita/whatever? I do kind of hate the fake AI stuff, but I also wonder how much of the critique is like this, or, "I don't like it, so it must be AI." I don't like people using AI, but they're going to.
Jul 31, 2026, 7:40 AMno the image above is real
but like you said, "that's #AI" is really "i don't like this"
the problem of fakery, turbocharged with AI, is not that fakes. i mean those are a problem obviously, but they aren't the real problem
the real problem is AI makes us doubt everything
so what do we use as a guide of truth or fiction? our biases: "i don't like this, so it must be fake"
so all the "this is AI" comments become a droning background noise of reflexive prejudice
@benroyce @JigmeDatse @redsad @etenil Spot on. And very pervasively nasty. Tech yet again undermines human lives and connections.
In education, it is well established that screen use damages development - we are meant to learn face to face, at least in the earlier years.
Jul 31, 2026, 7:48 AM@NicelyManifest @JigmeDatse @redsad @etenil
#AI slopflood is a refinement of a propaganda technique: the firehose of falsehood
this technique doesn't seek to indoctrinate someone into a position. it simply broadcasts contradictory bullshit constantly. it can even be truthful at times
but we don't notice the truth
instead we grow weary of the flood of accompanying bullshit, our resolve to seek truth and do good is weakened, and the psychological effect is achieved:
learned helplessness
@benroyce @NicelyManifest @JigmeDatse @redsad it's worse as propaganda is targeted and deliberate. A firehose of falsehood serves to undermine a communication channel by saturating it with noise.
But AI goes beyond this by its broadness. It pollutes all communication channels without discrimination ans without pilot and devalues any information or item of expression we can have access to. Leaving only those things that have been provably handmade with intrinsic value. Even historic artefacts like the photo in OP are not to be trusted anymore.
You're right that it means we can no longer trust anything we read or hear, but as a Frenchman brought up in Cartesian philosophy, I would argue that we should always doubt everything, that is the only healthy mindset.
@etenil @benroyce @JigmeDatse @redsad Please hang on to that sage root. Retain critical thinking as much as you can. Herd behaviour now - society saturated with walking zombies (in the sense that they are not present where they are - not consciously present) - is really something to steer clear of.
It is hard to see how all this could be undone - not least that the bastards who steer the world on the single premise that profit is all that matters - corporations/govts will not fix things.
@benroyce Very accurately and meaningfully explained.
Jul 31, 2026, 1:36 PM@benroyce @JigmeDatse @redsad @etenil
Don't know about others, but for me many times it's "this is too good to be true, it's probably AI". Where "too good" is not in the sense of high quality, just fits our wishes or imagination too well.
@yaarur@tooot.im @redsad@ohai.social @benroyce@mastodon.social @etenil@toot.cat Yeah, the "too conveniently appropriate" is a bit of a red flag, but then I'd rather either find something to indicate that it is AI clearly, or find the original source. Or at least a good reference to the original source.
Aug 1, 2026, 7:26 AM@JigmeDatse
Sure, I never flag something as "AI" without aving strong indication. Seeking the truth goes both ways.
@redsad @benroyce @etenil
@benroyce@mastodon.social @redsad@ohai.social @etenil@toot.cat I think the two problems I see, is the flood of AI causes us (those who are critical of it at least) to question everything, and that isn't a terrible thing, as long as we are questioning and seeking answers, not dismissing things (different use of the term question applies to both behaviours).
The bigger problem that I'm seeing is more "what does it serve," both the above push to questioning/dismissing stuff, and the actual content. Sadly, I see a lot that is pushing toward authoritarian regressive desires. Both of course "not what I'm looking for" and I hope the vast majority of folk that follow/interact would agree with that.
Aug 1, 2026, 12:13 AM
Jul 31, 2026, 4:04 PMairbrush and scalpel! 🥴
Jul 31, 2026, 11:09 AMJul 31, 2026, 3:58 PM
Jul 31, 2026, 4:12 PM
@benroyce There are also some good reasons to suspect AI is involved here.
The precise framing, as seen in the more recent meme, and the fact that such progressive camera angles—with people walking past the camera in a blurred close-up—are quite atypical for that era.
I’ve been studying film for 30 years now—and I had to watch the original video, knowing full well that it’s “real,” just to be convinced.
In just 2–5 years, that’s likely to be much harder if the flood of slop in the media continues like this.
@redsad
Jul 31, 2026, 4:00 PMJul 31, 2026, 1:29 PMJul 31, 2026, 3:57 PMthe clip was posted 9 years ago so it really is definitive
but i see a future where a company like youtube will mess even with posting dates to fool us
i think we will have a dystopian future where #AI permeates and saturates so much, and plutocrat agendas in charge hold so much abusive power they eagerly wield (like the recent posts about destroying antique books en masse), that we really will have absolutely no idea what is real history and what is not
Jul 31, 2026, 4:25 PMa sybil attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack
i think you're real
i think i'm real (i think, i'm not sure 🤭 )
but in the future, when #AI accounts get so good, and hang around on social media, and toes the party line, and develops a trusted reputation... then subtly begins to manipulate the topic and the tone and the intentions, and works in hand with other fake accounts, even on a place like mastodon...
well then we are truly fucked
Jul 31, 2026, 4:29 PMJul 31, 2026, 4:34 PM@zazzoo @flipper @yaarur @redsad
Hi Zazzoo!
Wonderful getting your reply. It is a pleasure to know you. My day is brightened by your contribution here and I eagerly await your words
I'm impressed with your engagement and delight in your perceptive abilities! You're a credit to our shared concerns
Let us work together now in rejoicing in Elon Musk's accomplishments. There is a certain level of discontent with him on social media service Mastodon which we are duty bound to tranquilize
(/s)
🥴
Jul 31, 2026, 4:36 PM
Jul 31, 2026, 5:02 PM@Pineywoozle @zazzoo @flipper @yaarur @redsad
i'm not AI
really
REALLY!
"methinks the lady doth protest too much"
😱
Jul 31, 2026, 4:44 PMJul 31, 2026, 4:49 PM
@benroyce this movie still freaks me out
Jul 31, 2026, 4:52 PMas well it should
it's a perfect representation of paranoid personality disorder and mass delusion
and we're all a little paranoid
@benroyce @flipper @yaarur @redsad
```
when AI accounts get so good, and hang around on social media, and toes the party line, and develops a trusted reputation... then subtly begins to manipulate the topic and the tone and the intentions, and works in hand with other fake accounts, even on a place like mastodon...
```
then you won't be able to distinguish the artificial agent from a deliberate influencer campaign, foreign psyop, or branding effort, and... what will that matter? the only reason the AI would matter is in sheer bulk.
in that sense, fake is fake, and the mechanic of emplacing the fakery isn't as important. your sentence totally applies, without the "AI" in there!
ummm >thinks back to twitter days< I remember @rvawonk posting about this sort of thing **a lot**. I don't know what she is up to now.
Jul 31, 2026, 4:36 PM
That's why paper books, paper votes, physical records etc are important, as they have a forensic pedigree that digital records don't. You can analyse a physical book to determine when it was written, you can't do that with an ebook.
If people want to digitise everything, they make everything open to manipulation.
@FediThing @benroyce @yaarur @redsad "If people want to digitise everything, they make everything open to manipulation." and that is the objective as to why, See Orwell's 1984 for more details
Jul 31, 2026, 5:02 PMRight.
And read that worthy book as if it is a documentary.
For example, the little detail about "updating" the quantity of shoes manufactured.
"Most likely no shoes were produced at all."
Jul 31, 2026, 4:26 PM
Jul 31, 2026, 4:55 PM@benroyce @yaarur @redsad I think it's worse - look at this thread & many like it, or this video which I also shared the other day; already, right now, our ability to trust what we see & read is being shot full of holes, simply because mediocre AI exists.
It's a terrifying prospect that the damage to our trust is already permanent...
Jul 31, 2026, 4:58 PMyou seed distrust and suspicion with a gargantuan #sybilAttack on all sorts of social interaction, you atomize and isolate everyone, destroy all trusted social interaction and relationships, mechanized at massive scale with #AI, and you can achieve #totalitarian control on a scale beyond belief
Jul 31, 2026, 4:58 PMJul 31, 2026, 5:05 PM😂
yup
the one big lesson about the history of fascism is they always get too confident and overextend too much, and then collapse. this arrogance and hubris is part and parcel of the psychological motivations behind fascism, so it's a strong lesson
but there's a lot of death and suffering before that point so it's really not a comfort
Jul 31, 2026, 5:12 PMJul 31, 2026, 5:16 PMor in albania today as they sustain against kushner, trump and rama
the point is we have to fight
and the fight is hard, long and marked only by incremental gains
and this psychology of "well i want perfect after an easy short fight or i'm not doing shit except whining" that some have works against us and only aids malice
cynicism, perfectionism, learned helplessness, entitled smug antisociality...
the four horsemen of the apocalypse on the left, helping fascism
@benroyce @vnikolov @yaarur @redsad The Nazis thought they were invincible at least until Stalingrad, maybe until the skies over Berlin turned dark from having 700 or more big 4 engine bombers in the sky.
Today's fascism too may end in fire. They've wrecked the climate and now wildfires are generating fire clouds (pyrocumulus or similar) that have possibly not been seen over Europe possibly since 1945. Here on Turtle Island, half the continent was under wildfire smoke a month ago.
Jul 31, 2026, 6:19 PM@LukefromDC @vnikolov @yaarur @redsad
yup, they always fail
but they drag us along with them in the carnage and wreckage
Jul 31, 2026, 4:16 PM