From The Atlantic.
On this week’s “Galaxy Brain” episode, Charlie Warzel is joined by New York Times technology reporter Tiffany Hsu to discuss the rise of AI influencers—synthetic avatars, often indistinguishable from real people, that are flooding social-media feeds to sell supplements and promote brands. Hsu unpacks her reporting on the combination of forces converging around it, including the wellness industry, a historically fertile ground for scammers. The pair discuss how the volume of synthetic content online is producing a new kind of epistemic exhaustion: a fatigue so deep that many people have simply stopped caring whether what they’re seeing is real. So is authenticity already beside the point? And is an audience’s emotional response—rather than the truth behind the image—the only currency that matters?
This episode of "Galaxy Brain" was produced by Renee Klahr and engineered by Miguel Carrascal. Our theme is by Rob Smierciak. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
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00:00 Introduction
03:42 Tiffany Hsu Joins
07:14 Who Is Making AI Influencers?
11:46 Influencers In Panic Mode
13:33 When Audiences Stop Caring
17:45 Media Literacy And Spotting AI Content
19:31 The Appeal of Fake Influencers
25:16 Why Regulation Lags
28:28 Netanyahu, AI, and the Liars Dividend
34:24 Can AI Avatars Gain Real Influence?
36:35 How to Spot an AI Influencer
41:22 Closing Thoughts
