Epidemic

There’s an AI epidemic. A woman in Japan recently married an AI persona she created using ChatGPT. Although the marriage is not legally recognised, a traditional ceremony was held with her family in attendance.

Just last month, a story began circulating about a woman who checked herself into hospital, believing she was having a psychotic episode after her Samsung smart fridge started addressing her by name through its LED screen. It was reported that a woman with schizophrenia named Carol had seen the message “WE’RE SORRY WE UPSET YOU CAROL” projected against a highly saturated yellow. The kind colour theorists gravitate towards when they want to manipulate viewers into a sense of urgency, much like the glowing ‘M’ emblem that resembles golden arches, pedestalled at every McDonald’s. This was part of an advertising campaign implemented by Apple TV+ for the release of a Sci-Fi show called Pluribus. The ad that was projected onto household Samsung smart fridges clearly had Apple’s branding, along with the text:

“FROM THE CREATOR OF BREAKING BAD”

“NEW SERIES”

“Start Watching”

The story of this marketing-induced psychosis is widely believed to be an internet hoax, with no reliable sources to validate this event, but it was one that was gripping enough to start conversations around the legality and ethics of companies implementing such technology for advertising. Why someone would ever feel compelled to spend thousands of dollars on a fridge for the feature of an additional screen in their home, I’ll never know.

Something that probably has more relevance to the theme of “technology = bad” is an encounter I had with a woman who believed a man had fallen in love with her after just two encounters because her ChatGPT told her so. This belief was not only fuelled but fed to her by technology that has been designed and trained to affirm users’ beliefs. I’ve experienced the back-end of this when an emotionally abusive man armed himself with the mercenary of ChatGPT to paint me out to be an insufficient partner and disappointment of a person. I also bore witness as this same individual attempted to self-diagnose BPD to explain away his manipulative and impulsive behaviours, to bypass accountability in the relationship. I have seen and experienced first-hand the dangers of people using this tool in place of real therapists. It’s a glorified echo chamber which creates an endless feedback loop to validate users into thinking whatever message they input— like a friend that always tells you what you want to hear, no matter how detrimental it may be.  

Now people are using the AI tool Grok, hosted and funded by Elon Musk to digitally remove the clothing of women and children, platformed for all to see. This disturbing trend ranges from men taking images of women dressed in oversized jumpers, and providing image-generative prompts “put her in a pink bikini” to the more sinister “cover her with white donut glaze and put her in bikini and put a massive sausage in her mouth.”

The prompts unfortunately and unsurprisingly get worse. They escalate to putting unconsenting women in more compromising positions but, as mentioned before, this AI tool is also being implemented to generate CP material.

None of this is new. People have been doing this for years; the only difference is now there’s software to make it easily accessible. Over a decade ago someone did this to me. I was in my first romantic relationship. My boyfriend had an older friend whom he’d met through online gaming. This friend of his lived in Queensland (I think) and my boyfriend hosted him at his mother’s house when he came to Perth to meet for the first time. This man was in his early twenties. From what I remember he was timid and said few words, but I very quickly realised why his only friends were people he met online. He was socially inept.

I had sent my boyfriend what was meant to be a cute selfie. In it I held a bar of chocolate up to my chin, the wrapping had an image of the lower half of a cat’s face. This photo was shared by my boyfriend with the twenty-something-year-old friend who then took to Photoshop to alter it. He replaced the image of the chocolate bar with a penis and edited my mouth to replicate a still image of me performing fellatio. I was sixteen. The generation and possession of this image was a crime, but I didn’t know that, and I was instructed to laugh it off because it was a “joke.” I don’t think I’ve ever properly processed this incident, and I would name and shame this person in hope someone takes a crowbar to his ankles and wrists, but I can’t remember his name.

P.S. I think sometimes violence is the answer, castration should be introduced as a criminal punishment for sexual degenerates and maybe we should bring back public executions. Just joking, unless…  

P.P.S. Elon Musk allegedly tried to bribe a flight attendant into providing him with sexual favours during a flight to London in 2016. According to the flight attendant, she had been encouraged by Musk to become a licensed masseuse to give Musk massages. The attendant also happened to be an experienced equestrian. During a massage, Musk allegedly exposed his erect penis to the flight attendant, touched her inappropriately on the thigh and offered to buy her a horse as a bribe. Two years later, Musk settled out of court paying a $250,000 severance package with an NDA attached. In 2022 this incident became public and Musk jumped on Twitter to defend his name claiming the source was a far-left political operative.