{"id":645499,"date":"2026-10-30T04:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T04:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/645499\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T04:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T04:26:13","slug":"so-untalented-he-was-accused-of-being-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/645499\/","title":{"rendered":"So Untalented, He Was Accused of Being AI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"gh-article-excerpt is-body\">A man so terrible at drawing, millions have accused him of being ChatGPT.<\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Screenshot-2026-10-28-at-6.18.52---PM.png\" alt=\"The roofer and the offending image.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>            Also on Webworm today: <a class=\"kg-bookmark-container\" href=\"https:\/\/www.webworm.co\/nightmarenappies\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>Zuru\u2019s Nightmare Nappies<\/p>\n<p>David Farrier&#8217;s Webworm looks at Zuru&#8217;s Millie Moon&#8217;s diapers, as parents &amp; consumer groups allege rashes, redness, swelling, blisters, peeling &amp; \u201cbleeding\u201d on babies bottoms. What does Nick Mowbray&#8217;s company have to say about it?<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/3a\/ef\/3aef830f-a32f-496b-9f76-9a58bfb99816\/content\/images\/thumbnail\/Screenshot-2026-10-29-at-12.31.19---PM-df1f9ba5-b974-4aa4-ba52-a61829047354.png\" alt=\"\" onerror=\"this.style.display = 'none'\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hi,<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m so happy, you lot.<\/p>\n<p>Webworm Live 2026 in New Zealand is almost sold out \u2013 there are just a few tickets left upstairs. This means so much to me \u2013 thank you.<\/p>\n<p>Same thing with next week&#8217;s Tickled screenings in New York \u2013 thank you.<\/p>\n<p>Now \u2013 onto today&#8217;s Webworm: Imagine you&#8217;re so terrible at something, millions come for your throat, accusing you of being AI. How do you defend yourself from a world so utterly warped by AI slop, they can&#8217;t differentiate it from plain-old human slop?<\/p>\n<p>After all, humans are the sloppiest of them all.<\/p>\n<p>Dylan Reeve has today&#8217;s Webworm.<\/p>\n<p>So Untalented, He Was Accused of Being AI<\/p>\n<p>by Dylan Reeve.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday evening, a roofer from Southland posted an image to his Facebook page riffing on the frustration many people feel with modern social media (and, increasingly, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/life\/food\/appalling-ai-menu-pictures-keep-going-viral-but-what-makes-them-so-revolting?ref=webworm.co\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">real life<\/a>) where they are seemingly bombarded with AI-generated \u2018slop\u2019 ads for every other business they encounter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sick of all the A.I. made ads. Here\u2019s mine: I\u2019m a roofer\u201d read the seemingly hand-drawn promotional image, showing a before and after of a leaky roof and a nice new one, alongside a smiling tradie and his van:<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"Southland Roof Repairs and their drawing\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"699\" height=\"748\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It went viral quickly! The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02X8TVtqobov4VsLM1x4X123yGhxQGe7E4gdoWum9ckDf7mbbcMoGo9GXupHcjLXcZl&amp;id=61566431534253\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">original post<\/a> was widely shared on Facebook, and screenshots quickly found their way onto other pages and platforms.\u00a0But to many users it all looked a bit, well, AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"This is clearly AI\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"244\" height=\"82\"\/><\/p>\n<p>It was, honestly, my first reaction too \u2013 and it seemed like that latent distrust of anything online was lurking just beneath the surface for a significant proportion of those commenting.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"Social media posts with scepticism\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"719\" height=\"313\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Those suspicious users were quick to deliver their proof, with nearly identical posts from other businesses demonstrating that this was just one more in a long long of AI templates allowing lazy companies to bombard social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Screenshot-2026-10-28-at-6.14.51---PM-1.png\" class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"Actual AI posts\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1900\" height=\"970\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>It seemed pretty open and shut to many of the thousands of commenters. For some the whole experience delivered a substantial hit to their overall sense of trust.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"&quot;My whole reality is distorted&quot;\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"664\" height=\"279\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But there was just one thing nagging at me: None of the other examples seemed to be older than the one posted by Southland Roof Repairs. In fact, they had all appeared after that post was already going viral on Facebook.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When checked with SynthID AI-watermark tools, the near identical examples that I found returned a positive result for having been generated with OpenAI tools.  The same wasn\u2019t true for Southland Roof Repairs\u2019 version, which showed no AI watermarks.<\/p>\n<p>I did note there were other, older, examples of the same idea, which were clearly AI generated:<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"Another actual AI ad\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"711\" height=\"783\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But I wanted to know more, so I reached out to Anton, from Southland Roof Repairs, to find out how it all went down \u2013 and confirm my assessment that the image he posted was a real drawing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Spoiler: I\u2019m convinced. It\u2019s a real, physical drawing, not something generated by AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                This post is for paying subscribers only<br \/>\n            <a class=\"gh-btn\" data-portal=\"signup\" href=\"#\/portal\/signup\" style=\"color:#000000\">Subscribe now<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Already have an account? <a data-portal=\"signin\" href=\"#\/portal\/signin\">Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man so terrible at drawing, millions have accused him of being ChatGPT. Also on Webworm today: Zuru\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-645499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}