The geniuses behind Twitter have this new app and all you have to do is download it to make a bunch of money. But hurry, it only works when 100,000 people download it, so if you don’t get in on this, you’ll be locked out!
That stupid pitch comes courtesy of an ad that popped up for me on my regular YouTube adventures. In said ad, you see a newsreader next to a CBC logo present Freeland, who, with the help of a little video editing and some AI sweetening, tells us all about this silly opportunity. Perhaps the most obnoxious part is they present it like it’s some breaking news but they use two clips of Freeland, so she’s dressed differently in the second half.
I ended up reporting the ad as I’m not really a fan of scammers using the likeness of the deputy prime minister to scam senior citizens and gullible children. That was five days ago. As of this writing, the ad is still up.
(Note to anyone interested: you can find the URL of any YouTube ad you see by right clicking and then selecting the option Stats for Nerds. It’ll give you a bunch of information. Top left of that info box, you’ll see Video ID / sCPN, after which is a numerical code. Paste that code into any YouTube URL after the ?v= part. Now you’re watching the ad in question like a normal YouTube video.)
Obviously, in the grand scheme of things this is a bit of a nothingburger. Man sees scammy ad, man is more outraged than warranted. Almost no one will fall for this obvious scam and politicians such as Freeland will be imitated with more powerful AI tools in more convincing ways.
Here’s what I find worrisome. Regular human beings with regular digital tools make all kinds of garbage and flood the internet with it. Platforms such as Google have a hard time keeping up with this garbage, even with all their automated content moderation tools. Now, platforms such as Google are handing us powerful AI tools, which can create more and even better garbage, and there is scant evidence that the platforms are prepared for the incoming wave of AI bullshit they themselves are facilitating.
So, if you’re a content marketer, how do you prepare for the incoming AI bullshit tsunami? Stay tuned, we guess.
