Media outlets around the world reported a man died after surgery to look like a K-pop star despite numerous red flags.
The news that Saint Von Colucci, a 22-year-old Canadian-Portuguese actor, singer, and songwriter with pull in South Korea’s entertainment scene, died after undergoing surgeries to look like a K-pop star set media abuzz.
Von Colucci was reported to have undergone 12 plastic surgeries, costing more than $200,000, to resemble BTS member Jimin and overcome discrimination “against his Western traits”. He was said to have recently secured a role in an upcoming Korean drama.
The only problem is that Von Colucci may have never existed.
A raft of evidence suggests he is the product of an elaborate hoax using artificial intelligence that fooled dozens of media outlets, stretching from the United States and Canada to the United Kingdom, South Korea, India, Malaysia and the Philippines.
The debacle appears to be the first known case of AI being used to trick media outlets en masse into spreading misinformation, heralding the dawn of a new era of computer-generated fake news.
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As if humans ever needed any help coming up with fake news
yeah like at one point they drop this line
and I guess they mean this is the first time "AI" was involved, but it's like, no, come on, this has been happening since before the internet, and the developments that have exacerbated it have less to do with advances in image generation technology than with the complete demise of journalism as a serious profession. As they point out, hardly any digging was required to poke holes in the story, but "serious" publications took it seriously because they just need something to fill a page.
Absolutely. "Journalists get duped" should be a dog bites man story at this point.
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Hell, not even Junior. SADDAM RIPPED THE BABBYS OUTTA THE DING DANG INCUBATORS!
...also the Kuwaitis were slant-drilling into oil fields along the border that were mostly on the Iraqi side, so Saddam was justifiably pissed. The UN blew him off, the US Embassy in Iraq said they wouldn't intervene, and then, out of nowhere (!), along comes a massive PR/disinfo campaign funded by the Kuwaiti royal family. Western media outlets lapped all that shit up.
You could probably go even deeper with the Gulf of Tonkin.
Oh