When photos of Zendaya and Tom Holland apparently getting married near Lake Como circulated online, excitement grew. But the images were fake, created by AI. As Zendaya told Jimmy Fallon: 'While I was just out and about in real life, people were like, “Oh my God, your wedding photos are gorgeous”. And I was like, “Babe, they’re AI. They’re not real.”'
This phrase has become a catch-all excuse, adopted by the author's teenage daughter for anything from a McDonald's wrapper to pink hair dye. The same logic was used by Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu when a fake video claimed he was dead; he wiggled his fingers to prove he was alive, as AI imagery often gets hands wrong.
The phenomenon extends to politics and crime. In the Netflix drama Adolescence, a 13-year-old character believes AI can exonerate him from CCTV evidence. Prince Andrew's photo with Virginia Giuffre was questioned, but fingers were correct. The irony is that AI struggles with digits, making hand checks a new proof of life.
Now, anyone caught cheating can use 'Babe, it's AI' as a defence. As the author notes, 'We all thought our next problem was being taken in by things we were told were real, but that turned out to be fake. Now it seems the new problem is being taken in by things that we are told are fake, but which will turn out to be real.'
