Yesterday, the below video appeared in my YouTube feed.
Apparently, McDonald’s is phasing out the self-serving soda kiosk because too many people are abusing it.
I have no doubt that McDonald’s is correct, and I have no doubt that soda-kiosk abusers skew ghetto rather than non-ghetto.
But take a closer look at the picture depicting soda-kiosk abuse. Why do we see red soda streaming out of the nozzle but not into the jug? We can see the accumulation of red soda in the jug, but not the stream feeding that accumulation. Why does the stream stop at the opening of the jug?
The picture is surely AI generated. And that scares the crap out of me. We’re already a low-trust society, and we’re already inclined to think the worst of the tribes we don’t like. And now the peddlers of mistrust and tribalism have the power of AI at their fingertips. God help us.
Quick aside: If you go to the above video and read the comments, you’ll see that no one questions the veracity of the picture depicting the soda-kiosk abuse. They all do exactly what they’re conditioned to do: hate on the tribe depicted in the AI-generated photo.
I took the vip tour at VOA in D.C. recently. The VP was concerned that soon, people will believe nothing unless they were physically there and heard and saw it with their own eyes.
This will change all media shortly.
That is coming faster than we think. We have lost the art and science of healthy skepticism. People are too eager to part with their money. This tells me we have too much liquidity in the economy still, after the Dem flood in COVID.
If it is on the internet, beware.