Creating an AI slot video is tasteless enough. But then the internet denizens convened in secret to devise a use for this technology that lowers the bar even further. Eventually, they unveiled their latest and greatest use of AI slot videos: the AI homeless man prank, where people weaponize artificial intelligence to manufacture panic and some fleeting notoriety.
It’s happened enough that there are now established structures and tropes. There’s a blurry iPhone screen grab with the caption saying that a wife/teen has let a homeless man into their home because he says he knows the parents, it’s sent to the parents/spouse, who then freak out.
What Exactly Is the AI Homeless Man Prank?
One of the most prominent, most popular examples of it would be from a woman on TikTok by the name of Rae Spencer from (where else) Florida, whose TikTok shows her husband freaked out after she sent him an AI-generated picture of a stranger napping in their bed. That’s currently sitting at 5.5 million likes.
With those kinds of numbers, it was guaranteed to create countless copycats, many of which broke TikTok’s containment and spread to other apps like Instagram and Snapchat. The trend has become so prevalent that it’s reached the upper echelon of internet trends, where local police forces have to issue warnings begging people to stop doing this.
Law enforcement agencies from Massachusetts to Ireland issued warnings, calling the prank tasteless and dangerous. Cops treat these calls as real home invasions, sometimes even deploying resources before realizing it’s all CGI slop.
A statement released by the Salem Police Department in Salem, Massachusetts, doesn’t mince words: “Besides being in bad taste, there are many reasons why this prank is, to put it bluntly, stupid and potentially dangerous.”
It goes on delivering the heat every step of the way: “This prank dehumanizes the homeless, causes the distressed recipient to panic, and wastes police resources. Police officers who are called upon to respond to you, not knowing this is a prank, treat the call as an actual burglary in progress, thus creating a potentially dangerous situation.”
Charges have already been brought up in one instance in Ohio, where some teenagers used an AI-generated image to claim that a homeless person was roaming the grounds of their high school.
TikTok has been trying to fight back against the tide of AI slop videos by labeling them as such. The problem is, there are just so many of them, and they can be generated so easily and so quickly that TikTok’s moderation system struggles to keep pace.
The old adage about lies not only remains true but seems to be intensifying: a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can put on his pants.
The post Beware The ‘AI Homeless Man’ Trend appeared first on VICE.
