this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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Also:
I’d love to do case studies on the real people at the end of these things.
Like, who is scrolling Facebook and Insta to thirst over algorithmic posts, yet is somehow unaware of the generative explosion?
Do they know, and just don’t care? Do they think they could tell if an image is fake, or is it true unawareness?
What do they do in real life? What are their relationships like?
How does this system work.
I think it’s easy to assume they’re all basement dwellers or whatever, but one could stereotype Lemmy the same way, and that’s just not true.
EDIT: Now that I think about it, such studies must exist. I don’t want to fall into the “I didn’t even try to search for the answer” thing.
But all this has happened so fast. And clearly the studies aren’t being acted on…
My father is retired, my sister and I have carefully avoided describing AI to him because he would for sure get AI psychosis if he started conversing with a chat bot, his relationships are all unhealthy. My sister and I have made him agree to let us control his retirement income in exchange for bailing him out of a particularly financially devastating one of the many scams he fell for in retirement. We give him a weekly allowance for groceries and prescriptions and gift cards to give to thirst traps.
He is absolutely unaware they are fake, at a core identity level of refusal to grapple with reality. Some combination of he always had some susceptibility to this kind of thing, lost his only close trusted reality check person when he and my mom split up after over twenty years, and aging-related cognitive impairment.
What does he use specifically, though? Facebook, Instagram? OF?
On his phone, right?
I apologize if that's a weird question, but I'm... scientifically curious. I know lots of folks are susceptible, but I'm interested in the systems that suck folks like your father in.