Scammer used an AI-generated MAGA girl to grift men

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-generated-maga-girls/

by Aboutplants • 3 months ago

85 34 3 months ago

verdverm5• 3 months ago

Another episode in the series of exploitation of the vulnerable. Prior art: gambling in the pocket, crypto get rich schemes, candy crush in-app purchases. This seems like an adaptation of OnlyFans, artificial and automated.

Would be nice if we could stop taking advantage of others weaknesses.

ge962• 3 months ago

It is interesting like I am capable of generating these deepfakes/mass generated content, stealing content, etc... why don't I do it? If I really do just want to make money.

Maybe it is easier to do if you're in a country that won't get punished by the internet law.

philipwhiuk• 3 months ago

why don't I do it

Morals?

MisterTea2• 3 months ago

The fact that you are questioning this is alarming. When you hear of someones misfortune and you have no emotion you are lacking empathy which is a common trait of psychopaths.

When you think about harming someone, at least in my mind, it is impossible not to think of the scenario reversed. How would I feel if the same were done to me? That is at least what a responsible person would do: think about the consequences of their actions. Most people would feel bad after doing something bad to someone. If you cant understand this then there is a problem.

Yiin• 3 months ago

who is we, this argument is as useful as "we should not waste food so we can fix starvation"

gdulli• 3 months ago

I found the Rosetta Stone of Hacker News.

verdverm5• 3 months ago

people, humans, the species

I would argue the (very incomplete) list in my comment is predatory whereas wasting food is not (for the most part)

hinata082• 3 months ago

not only can the same logics apply to any media, as you can always say that mass cultural consumerism exploits vulnerable, but I also struggle to consider the MAGA crowd as the vulnerable people right now

Some wanted really specific entertainment in the form of AI generated conservative young girlfriend, this guy provided it

If it's immoral, you should also go after Hollywood for making blockbusters that aren't AI generated but have somehow fewer substance these days

However, for now, no law was broken in the process

verdverm5• 3 months ago

It does not seem clear if they knew it was Ai generated. The creator seems to think his marks were none the wiser, as evidenced by the liberal version experiment and his comments therein.

mcphage• 3 months ago

stop taking advantage of others weaknesses

What does it mean to have a weakness for purchasing T-shirts that read ”PTSD: Pretty Tired of Stupid Democrats”? That's not predatory; they're paying money for a t-shirt and (presumably) receiving said t-shirt.

Or for their Fanvue account, they're paying money to receive soft-core pornography, and they are receiving soft-core pornography.

This isn't a scam—they're paying money for a thing, and are receiving that thing. I could say "well, that's not a great thing to be spending money on", and it's not, but I don't think of sellers of off-color t-shirts as something that people need to be protected from.

bloody-crow• 3 months ago

I big part of the purchase decision making is attributed to the fact that they think they support a real person that is aligned with their ideology.

I'd wager most of them wouldn't have paid money on OnlyFans or purchased the hoodie if they knew the account was AI generated. So it is scam.

verdverm5• 3 months ago

I agree if the consumer is informed, clearly, that it is Ai, but based on the creator's comments, it seems the intention was to deceive. I suspect most people would not make the same purchases if they knew it was artificial.

fallinghawks2• 3 months ago

A political position is not a weakness, it's a choice.

Ancapistani2• 3 months ago

Right - like religion, or sexual orientation.

Wait, that last one doesn’t seem right. Where do you draw the line exactly, if earnest-held political beliefs are “choices”?

TrackerFF• 3 months ago

There are literally thousands of AI thirst trap accounts on IG. I have to admit, I have clicked on some of them when they've popped up in my feed, and I've been fooled a couple of times...as in, I couldn't spot them being AI. Usually I'm pretty good at spotting AI, so I'm not sure what models are being used to make those clips.

These accounts have 10-20 vids, a link to the usual sites, and hundreds / thousands of comments from other bots and thirsty geezers.

soco• 3 months ago

Come to Tumblr and watch the exact same concept: maybe it's my social media algorithm filtering out the dem-oriented traps, but all I see is such "10-posts max" accounts with cleavage, hotrods, and something rightwing of a way or another. They follow you and immediately initiate chats. I'm sure they wouldn't be so many if it didn't work.

stevenwoo• 3 months ago

Thought this was going to be about “Jessica Foster” but it was about another one they traced to source. It reads like bad satire, it’s so on the nose about how AI enabled all of the creation process and lax enforcement of rules on social media allow anything to flourish for a while.

tromp• 3 months ago

https://archive.is/kXVNR

tech_ken• 3 months ago

Sam says he presented Gemini with a few possible options to help his model stand out, and the chatbot selected one in particular: the “MAGA/conservative niche,” referring to it as a “cheat code.” Plus, it said, “the conservative audience (especially older men in the US) often has higher disposable income and is more loyal.

Reminds me of: https://maxread.substack.com/p/predictions-markets-and-the-s...

enoint• 3 months ago

a huge and immediately accessible collection of suckers, waiting to have their avidity and paranoia exploited for cash

We can say this in a less-judgmental way: everyone has known since the 60s what it means to target that list.

burnte• 3 months ago

I used to know a guy 15 years ago whose whole career was this, except he had real female friends he'd pay for videos and photos (safe for work, no nudity) to bump up the realism. It's shockingly easy. I wonder how he's doing in this AI age.

Scammer used an AI-generated MAGA girl to grift men

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