Reddit’s ‘Celebrity Number Six’ Win Was Almost a Catastrophe—Thanks to AI

Take, for example, the different precocious solved net mystery: The root of the opus that became known arsenic “Everyone Knows That.” After astir 3 years of online investigative work, a brace of Redditors recovered the song—titled “Ulterior Motives”—after proceeding a akin opus successful an big movie clip connected YouTube and watching literal hours of porn that had perchance been scored by the songwriters credited connected that clip.

During the hunt determination had been speculation that the opus was AI-generated oregon portion of immoderate stunt. If the detectives had gotten excessively distracted by that, oregon if idiosyncratic had tried to usage AI to “solve” the enigma by conscionable making a akin track, those 2 ne'er would person gotten to ticker each that porn. They astir apt conscionable would’ve gotten embroiled successful scores of online fights.

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Celebrity Number Six and “Everyone Knows That” are mysteries that, nevertheless slightly, predate the existent generative AI boom, and arsenic specified look to person avoided astatine slightest immoderate of the fallout. While some investigations decidedly exhibited the benignant of caution indispensable erstwhile determining the authenticity of thing online, their communicative arcs amusement the ways successful which the net is present adjacent much untrustworthy than it utilized to be. This is acold much existent successful the lawsuit of C6 than “Everyone Knows That,” but it’s hard to ideate immoderate caller enigma that pops up successful their aftermath having less disagreements astir what is existent and what came from AI.

When the Times reached retired to Sardá, she noted that she’d been trying to bask her caller fame. (She’s on TikTok now.) She said she was blessed that radical had gone to specified lengths to find her, but besides acrophobic astir “how acold this could go” and however overmuch it would alteration her life. There was 1 thing, though, that seemed to springiness her comfort: “I tin ever hide.”

Loose Threads:

Cat memes are infiltrating the US election. Bear with me, due to the fact that beauteous overmuch each of these threads are going to beryllium astir cats. The archetypal 1 involves a baseless conspiracy that began floating astir this week connected societal media that Haitian immigrants successful Springfield, Ohio were eating cats (as good arsenic ducks and geese). Ohio legislator J.D. Vance referenced the conspiracy on X, and the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, posted several images of cats (and ducks) with captions similar “Save them!” Texas legislator Ted Cruz posted a meme-style representation macro of a brace of embracing kittens with the substance “Please ballot for Trump truthful the Haitian immigrants don’t devour us.” It was accompanied by 3 cry-laughing emojis. Over connected the Republican House Judiciary Committee’s X account, determination was a seemingly AI-generated representation of Trump holding a duck and kitten successful what appears to beryllium a lake.

Cat memes deed the statement floor. The cat-eating conspiracy got an adjacent bigger level connected Tuesday nighttime when, during Trump’s statement with Vice President Kamala Harris, helium said, “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats.” The audio rapidly migrated to TikTok wherever it was placed adjacent to images of people’s pets. Memes of Alf, the alien sitcom prima who famously ever wanted to devour the household feline, besides took off.

Taylor Swift (and her cat) endorse Kamala Harris. Lest you deliberation the feline chat stopped there, it didn’t. Mere moments aft the statement ended, Taylor Swift grabbed her telephone (presumably) and typed retired an Instagram station that some decried AI misinformation and endorsed Kamala Harris. Swift signed it “Childless Cat Lady.” In the photo, she’s holding a cat. As of this writing, the station has much than 10 cardinal likes. Musk seemingly responded to Swift’s endorsement by penning connected X, “Fine Taylor … you triumph … I volition springiness you a kid and defender your cats with my life.” He followed that up a fewer hours aboriginal with “Toxoplasma gondii is simply a information to our democracy,” fundamentally saying that a parasite that is carried by cats—and tin marque animals similar mice not acrophobic of cats—could reshape the authorities successful America.

Kendrick Lamar dropped a caller opus connected Instagram. After causing a large ruckus online by announcing that he’d execute the Super Bowl halftime amusement adjacent year, Kendrick Lamar dropped a caller track. Listen to it here.