Genuinely horrifying
this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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I think anyone savvy in the industry could have guessed this would be the endgame for AI - mass astroturfing to promote shitty subscription services.
I don't think this is anywhere near the "endgame", it's a blip on the way to something way worse.
Does no one ask themselves what kind of future they are creating when they make these kinds of tools? Personally I don't even listen to ads or influencers as it is, but when everyone has these tools, who is going to be listening to all these fake testimonials? It just seems like another thing that will be used for more harm than good, an erosion of trust.
Thats why I created UGC Followers. Are you tired of not getting enough real engagement with your fake ass testimonials? Now you can generate fake engagement characters to interact with your fake testimonials. Think of all the fake trending your fake testimonials and fake followers can generate!1!
It's time to invest in companies in the electricity business. All these AI tools needs electricity to run, after all.
And all the real money you'll really defraud and really make! Powererrrrerrrrrrr
I think these people have something missing upstairs.
Sure they do. They're working towards a future where they have more money than they do today, and that's about all they care to consider.
The hustle/grift culture in this country is just too damn strong, and now with a criminal president, these folks are even more emboldened with their bad ideas. I really have no idea what advertising in the future is going to be like but they gotta figure something out because right now it just feels like they're throwing shit at a wall.
It's probably just going to get more invasive, pervasive and pernicious. As the advertising loses effectiveness due to over-exposure they're just going to push harder and harder. Eventually the advertising industry will collapse into a ghost of its former self when a critical mass of people effectively become serfs, with no money except for the scrip they spend at the company store.
I kinda doubt it had ever not been about throwing shit at the wall...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Haha I mean yeah I suppose, once we got past advertising jingles it was kind of a free for all.
Oh hey look it's the perfect tool for revolting pedos to pretend to be preteens so they can blend in with their prey.
Maybe creating an avalanche of fake kids is the better way to stop the pedos. If they can't know if the one they are talking to is a fake the real ones (if they are still there) are safer.
Could also be used by law enforcement to catch small-time predators. They already make fake accounts for this purpose, this just takes it to the next level
Frankly the "pay someone to talk about how awesome your product is" brand of ads has always been kinda creepy, so this is par for the course.
someone pops up on a webcam and starts talking about a product
Normalize ignoring anything you aren't looking at on purpose.
It sucks that this technology is being used this way. It could be incredible for things like D&D where you can swap your likeness/voice for that of your character.
wtf is UGC and do I care? Probably not.
I think this is already happening in China
This is already probably pretty widespread in general. With the absolutely absurd amount of AI slop being thrown out on the web, and the insane amount of available training material for tiktok-slop....
Also, low effort tiktok-trend astroturfing videos are probably some of the easiest AI videos to mass generate. You need exactly zero original content, have massive amounts of training data available, and can easily make a prototype video that the AI can modify.
Anytime I see an ai ad for a company, I know to avoid