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The internet\u2019s infatuation with AI slop<\/a> is spiraling, but surely you don\u2019t need me to tell you that. The constant deepfakes of celebrities saying something ridiculous can really wear a fella down. Some joke pages on social media manage to be genuinely funny with it on occasion, like a blind squirrel finding a nut, and they trick a lot of people in the process. This phony clip<\/a> of a dirt track race car pileup did that and more when it fooled a legit news outlet into believing the crash really happened.<\/p>\n NBC Chicago<\/a> aired a short segment Wednesday night that featured a video from the Weaber Valley Speedway page<\/a> on Facebook. The (fake) footage shows an entire field of dirt late model race cars circling the track, only for the lights to go off, leading to a crash. <\/p>\n On its own, that isn\u2019t entirely unbelievable\u2014and, for sure, some might see it as newsworthy. But the Channel Five station missed some crucial clues that this was really a bunch of bologna.<\/p>\n \u201cWe later found out the power company in the area cut the lights to intimidate the track owners into paying their electric bill on time,\u201d the reporter explained on-air, pulling info from the post\u2019s caption that was written in broken English. \u201cThe track then gave each car in the wreck an extra $5 to go toward repair work.\u201d<\/p>\n This fits in perfectly with Weaber Valley Speedway\u2019s schtick. If you visit the page, which has roughly 340,000 followers on Facebook<\/a> and 40,000 more on Instagram<\/a>, you\u2019ll see that it\u2019s constantly posting about redneck stereotypes that are cranked up to 11. Every once in a while, they post something fairly believable, but most of their clips are obviously satire (albeit extraordinarily well-done). Surely, if NBC Chicago had seen the video of a NASA space shuttle crashing on the track<\/a> or a possum smoking a cigarette while giving the camera a thumbs up<\/a>, they would\u2019ve known this clip was fake, too.<\/p>\n The Weaber Valley Speedway page is run by Howard Weaver, and I was able to talk to him on the phone about this evening news snafu.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way he said that with a straight face,\u201d Weaver laughed, talking about the newscaster believing the backstory. When a friend sent him a recording of the news clip, he wondered if it was real or AI. \u201cYou can\u2019t trust anything nowadays,\u201d he quipped.<\/p>\n Weaver told me he made the clip with OpenAI\u2019s new Sora 2 video generator. He said it\u2019s the best tool right now for making hyper-realistic clips, but it requires a lot of coaching to make something as clean as the power outage video.<\/p>\n \u201cMy prompt for a single video like that is probably three paragraphs long,\u201d Weaver said. \u201cI\u2019m not just saying, \u2018Do a video of the power going out at the dirt track and then a car crash.\u2019 I\u2019m typing file names for it to use, to make it look like a cell phone video, like, \u2018Shaky handheld iPhone 11 video recorded from the bleachers\u2019 and blah blah blah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m like practically writing a book to get a 10-second video,\u201d Weaver continued.<\/p>\n Weaber Valley has grown into one of the largest dirt track pages on Facebook, only trailing big ones like Eldora Speedway<\/a> in follower count, and it\u2019s not even real. A lot of people are in on the joke as a result, but there are still droves of people who get fooled. The hysteria will only spread as models like Sora improve with each passing update. <\/p>\n \u201cI have mixed feelings about it because it\u2019s kind of scary, but it\u2019s funny, but then it\u2019s also scary,\u201d Weaver said. \u201cI think social media is going to be killed by this.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe that wouldn\u2019t be so bad after all, but this story isn\u2019t really about that.<\/p>\n Got a tip or question for the author? Contact them directly: caleb@thedrive.com<\/p>\n From running point on new car launch coverage to editing long-form features and reviews, Caleb does some of everything at The Drive. And he really, really loves trucks.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t