There Are No Girls on the Internet - Real Life Beef： Bridget vs Essence Magazine - Listeners demand the truth about that weird 'Vila Davis' postazine

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00:00:34.940 I survived nine months in captivity,

00:00:38.460 and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:00:43.680 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:00:47.300 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable,

00:00:51.020 abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:00:54.640 These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

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00:01:21.800 Order without the drama.

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00:01:32.020 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:01:40.120 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:01:45.660 So this is going to be a little bit different of an episode than the one that we initially had planned for today.

00:01:50.860 And that is because I have found myself personally in a situation that I think really speaks to this specific moment in technology, media, the internet, and where we're going in the future.

00:02:02.860 And as we're exploring this present future of ours, we are probably going to find ourselves having more and more moments like this one.

00:02:10.540 So I wanted to bring all of you along on this ride with me.

00:02:14.500 I am here with my producer, Mike.

00:02:16.580 Mike, it is not often that we are talking about drama.

00:02:20.600 Drama might be a little bit strong.

00:02:22.020 Drama, discourse, dialogue that I am at the center of for something that I said on the

00:02:27.780 podcast a few weeks ago.

00:02:29.240 Thank you for bravely being here to walk us through this journey.

00:02:32.700 Yeah, thanks for having me along.

00:02:34.640 I'm excited to have a front row seat.

00:02:36.840 Don't sell yourself short.

00:02:38.420 It is legit internet drama that you are involved in.

00:02:42.040 I know.

00:02:42.320 it's so much better to have low stakes internet drama when you're not involved in it. So I kind

00:02:48.060 of feel like I'm on the other end of what I've enjoyed rubbernecking at when so many other people

00:02:52.420 are on the other end. So here's what's going down. If you follow me on Instagram, you might

00:02:55.920 have seen that we had a little bit of drama about something that we said on the podcast a few weeks

00:02:59.480 ago. In our newscast from May 19th, I was talking about this very weirdly worded Facebook post that

00:03:06.320 Essence Magazine published on their Facebook page. Basically, it was a picture of actor Viola Davis

00:03:10.960 at the Cannes Film Festival, looking beautiful.

00:03:14.600 Side note, I also might have mispronounced

00:03:16.600 Cannes in that episode.

00:03:18.740 I have always said Cannes.

00:03:20.860 I thought I was saying it correctly.

00:03:22.740 It's how I have said it my whole life.

00:03:24.720 I got some feedback that perhaps it is pronounced Cannes.

00:03:27.420 I looked it up and I saw both iterations

00:03:30.020 of the pronunciation.

00:03:31.420 So Cannes, Cannes, if you are French,

00:03:34.160 if you are affiliated with that festival,

00:03:36.600 let me know if I'm saying it incorrectly.

00:03:39.280 Cannes is how I'm going to say it.

00:03:40.960 right now. But in any event, Essence was basically complimenting Viola Davis, how she looked in this

00:03:46.840 picture. She looks amazing. She's wearing all white. They put out a Facebook post, and I'm 0.95

00:03:51.080 going to read word for word. We give credit when credit is due. And Villa Davis, misspelling theirs,

00:04:00.140 is looking like an 850. Everyone at Cannes can now pack your bags and return home. This is a eat.

00:04:06.700 This is an eight. This is supper. God damn, the dam is broken and the flood of goodness

00:04:13.740 has overflowed. 10 out of 10, hashtag essence. So I speculated that this post was not written 0.99

00:04:21.320 by a human. It was in fact written by AI. I believe that somebody specifically asked an AI

00:04:28.400 program to compliment someone's outfit and do so in the voice of a Black woman. That is what I

00:04:35.840 believe. That is my opinion. In the episode when we were talking about it, I think I made it very

00:04:40.300 clear. I said, I don't have any proof, but no one will ever be able to convince me that this was

00:04:45.400 not written by AI. Just something about it, I believe it was written by AI. That just seemed

00:04:50.500 like the most likely explanation to me, given how weird that text was. I posted a clip from that

00:04:59.060 episode of the podcast talking about this to my Instagram page. And Essence Magazine,

00:05:04.120 surprise surprise replied so when I woke up on Saturday and saw that they were in my comments

00:05:11.020 at first I was like pretty happy I was like wow I can't believe that this post made it all the way

00:05:17.240 to essence so their reply said busted call us iCarly and then a little robot emoji which is a

00:05:24.920 reference to a Disney Channel show about two kind of techie girls who run a website and a show

00:05:29.960 online. So I took that to mean they are playfully acknowledging, yep, we're busted. We used AI

00:05:37.860 to make this comment. That's why it was so weird. No big deal. Didn't think anything of it. In fact,

00:05:43.320 I thought like, oh, wow, I am happy to see them playfully taking ownership of being called out

00:05:50.200 for using kind of like a janky AI voice. So then I replied, ah, love you guys. Heart emoji,

00:05:57.160 crying laughing emoji because I was legitimately

00:05:59.400 tickled by this, right? And the

00:06:01.460 whole clip was sort of meant

00:06:03.440 in jest, right? Like, I wasn't

00:06:05.480 dragging Essence Magazine. I like

00:06:07.580 Essence Magazine. I think they do good reporting.

00:06:09.760 It was more about

00:06:11.000 the pitfalls and

00:06:13.420 drawbacks of

00:06:15.300 experimenting with AI voice in media.

00:06:17.760 It really could have been any brand.

00:06:19.200 It was not meant to be an attack on Essence.

00:06:21.100 I did not feel it that way. People listen to

00:06:23.160 the episode. It's very

00:06:24.180 jovial.

00:06:27.160 lighthearted. With me? Okay. So they reply to my comment that's like, I love you guys. They say,

00:06:34.960 we love you too, but let's be more responsible with the reporting of misinformation. So that,

00:06:42.340 you're right to guess, that is the appropriate response. What are your thoughts on that as the

00:06:48.560 producer of this podcast? Well, it does not feel good to be accused of spreading misinformation,

00:06:55.700 right? Like we go out of our way to counter misinformation. And so that doesn't feel good.

00:07:04.940 And I can imagine that, you know, it being on your personal Instagram felt extra not good.

00:07:12.200 But it's also a weird sequence of posts, right? Like the first post said busted as if they were

00:07:19.260 busted doing the thing they were accused of doing. Who says busted when they're not busted?

00:07:24.040 like busted has a very specific unless they were kind of trying to play with it or something but

00:07:29.460 like busted means oh no caught yeah yeah like i have been caught i'm busted so it's weird to know

00:07:39.140 what to make of it like if they're if they are busted then what was the misinformation great

00:07:45.340 question so the misinformation comment i just could not let stand i thought that was a pretty

00:07:51.940 strong way to phrase something that I went out of my way to say, I have no proof. This is my opinion.

00:07:58.360 I'm just saying what I think. I did also include that someone at Essence did edit that post so

00:08:06.200 that it looked more, it was more polished and didn't read quite as. I still think it's weird

00:08:10.820 in my opinion, but somebody went in and edited it. So clearly we're both on the same page that

00:08:16.360 that post, something was up with it because why else would they edit it? So to their misinformation

00:08:21.080 comment, I reiterated that this was just my opinion about how such a weird post wound up on

00:08:26.440 their page. I asked like, if it wasn't AI, was it like a sloppy human? You didn't even spell Viola

00:08:32.700 Davis's name right. I would think that any person working at Essence writing about entertainment

00:08:37.480 especially would know how to spell her name. And so I said, if I got it wrong, I am more than happy

00:08:43.500 to correct the record. And that still stands. I would love to correct the record, but I need to

00:08:47.980 know, what happened? Was it a human? Was it not AI? Like, what are you disputing specifically?

00:08:53.080 And then they went silent. So this is a little bit of a personal thing with me. I really have

00:08:59.680 an issue when somebody is very loud. The accusation is very loud. But then when you're like, okay,

00:09:05.660 well, then what did I get wrong? When you're asked for clarifying information, silence. I cannot

00:09:09.920 stand that. It's like a throw a rock and hide your hands kind of thing. Like, you were so loud

00:09:15.540 accusing me of misreporting misinformation about your publication, but you're unwilling to give me

00:09:21.620 any information about what exactly I got wrong and how I got it wrong, I want to provide accurate

00:09:26.600 information to my listenership and my readership and use my platform to do that, obviously.

00:09:31.940 But it's telling to me that they just went silent. So I don't engage in a lot of drama.

00:09:40.420 I'm a drama appreciator.

00:09:42.740 I'm a drama connoisseur.

00:09:44.780 This is a podcast, but I'm wearing a hat currently, as we were recording, that references my love of petty drama.

00:09:51.520 It's a hat that says, I don't know her.

00:09:54.100 It is a hat from one of my favorite podcasts, Two Weekly.

00:09:57.360 It's a reference to Mariah Carey.

00:09:59.280 Always, when asked about one of her nemesises, nemesi, J-Lo, she always coolly responds with, I don't know her.

00:10:07.120 which I think is a great way to respond to drama without really engaging in it, but still engaging

00:10:13.300 in it. Love her. But here's the thing about me. I am kind of a petty person. I host a podcast

00:10:20.000 called Beef that is about pettiness and rivalries and why it's so important. So obviously, I wasn't

00:10:26.580 just going to let this go. Telling me that I'm misreporting things and reporting misinformation,

00:10:31.960 I'm not going to let that go. I'm sorry. So this happened on a weekend, and I happen to have a lot

00:10:36.480 have time on my hands. So I made another comment and I was like, Essence, what is the truth? Didn't

00:10:41.520 hear back. I made a story with a screenshot of their initial post. And I said, Essence in my

00:10:49.480 Instagram comments has implied that they did not use AI to write this post. I asked them, I said,

00:10:54.500 I will be happy to correct the record if they give me some follow-up about what did happen.

00:10:57.980 Was it a human error? You know, what happened here? Happy to correct, but need some information.

00:11:03.460 Still nothing.

00:11:04.820 So that is why I'm taking it to the podcast.

00:11:07.940 I feel like I need to talk about it.

00:11:09.660 I'm not intending on letting it go until I hear back from Essence.

00:11:12.660 And so if anyone knows Essence or has a connection to them, I would love to hear.

00:11:17.300 You have an invite to come on the show.

00:11:19.100 I actually think that would be great.

00:11:20.760 So Bridget, what about this post made you think it was written by AI?

00:11:25.280 Great question.

00:11:26.280 So again, this is my opinion.

00:11:28.300 I have no proof.

00:11:29.120 I have no insight into Essence Magazine's editorial room.

00:11:32.620 I put out a poll on Instagram to say, like, do people think this is AI or not?

00:11:37.400 Overwhelmingly, most people think it's AI.

00:11:39.220 Not that it's a scientific poll, but one person said that they believed that it was written by a human who was trying to do this, like, youthful, voicey, TikTok voice and just falling short.

00:11:49.400 Reasonable, right?

00:11:51.020 Here's why I think it was AI.

00:11:52.840 I spend a lot of time analyzing AI-generated content, both visual content and written content.

00:11:59.500 And one thing that when it comes to written text is AI can sometimes be a bit repetitive. And so the fact that this Essence post reiterated this eight bit a few times, that seemed a little AI-like to me.

00:12:18.100 like, this ate, this is an ate, this is an eat. I don't, it's not something, I get that they are

00:12:26.160 going for like a very specific Black women, you know, slang. I say that, you know, she ate, that 1.00

00:12:33.200 ate, left no crumbs all the time. That would be, those are phrases that I've heard before in the

00:12:39.620 vernacular. The way that they put it in that repetitive way have never heard that before.

00:12:44.720 And the fact that it's repeating similar words, I'm sorry, that is something that AI kind of does when you're looking at AI-generated text is repetition.

00:12:54.120 So that was the first thing that kind of made me think, oh, this is AI.

00:12:56.480 The second thing is a little bit harder to describe, but you know it when you see it.

00:13:03.660 It's just that AI-generated text just doesn't sound right.

00:13:07.580 The same way that when you see an AI-generated image, sometimes it just has a quality to it that's hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

00:13:14.720 that tells you this isn't quite right.

00:13:17.880 Like, Mike, do you remember a couple of years ago

00:13:20.100 when people would be playing with AI and be like,

00:13:23.320 oh, we trained an AI on watching 50 Hallmark Christmas movies

00:13:26.980 and here's what it generated.

00:13:28.740 And it's the joke, the reason why those things were funny

00:13:31.300 was that, like, they were almost right,

00:13:34.280 but something about them just was off.

00:13:36.340 So you could just tell, like, this is not a normal Christmas movie.

00:13:39.000 There's some detail or quality to it that makes it just sound off.

00:13:43.820 Do you know what I'm saying?

00:13:44.300 Yeah, it'll be like 90, 95% of the way there, just like nailing all the common tropes and

00:13:52.420 patterns from its training corpus. But that last five or 10% will just be like off the wall and

00:13:59.920 like stand out like a sore thumb. Exactly. So that's what I think is going on here. That's

00:14:04.260 what this sounds like to me. Also, the fact that Post relies on two different metaphors.

00:14:10.340 One is like, she ate.

00:14:12.020 If you're not familiar with that, it's like, if somebody ate, it means that they, whatever

00:14:15.700 they're doing, they're doing a good job of it, right?

00:14:17.160 They ate and left no crumbs.

00:14:18.360 She thought she ate that, all of that.

00:14:20.060 One.

00:14:20.780 And then two, we give credit where credit is due.

00:14:24.180 And this is looking like an 850, a reference to credit scores, money, you know, in your

00:14:28.500 bag, to us.

00:14:30.260 Those two metaphors seem very distinct to me.

00:14:34.260 It's curious to me that someone would put them in the same post.

00:14:39.520 It just seems so disparate that I have to question it.

00:14:42.100 It just sounds like somebody was trying to pack way too many AAVE metaphors and slang terms into one sentence, even metaphors that don't really relate to each other.

00:14:54.620 And that is something that we know that AI does.

00:14:58.000 When you ask AI to write something, that's one of the kind of giveaways that it might not be a human, and in fact it is AI, is that it's giving you way too much.

00:15:07.400 It's a little bit over the top in a way that makes it that much more obvious that it's not a human.

00:15:13.020 And I want to get into a little bit more why I feel like this post reads like AI to me after a quick break.

00:15:37.400 Bill. Connection is everything.

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00:18:16.660 And we're back.

00:18:17.560 So another thing that just strikes me as potentially one of the reasons why this feels like AI to me, in my opinion, is that it was part of a series of posts just breaking down different celebrities' outfits.

00:18:36.380 And so it's, you know, it's going to be like, it's not like one post, it's going to be multiple posts as people walk the carpet at the festival.

00:18:44.660 And so I, just having worked in social media before, I've run social media for big news companies that you've definitely heard of, I know that when you are in a situation where you're live tweeting or you're going to be posting 10 pictures and coming up with posts and captions for 10 or 20 pictures in an hour, that's a lot.

00:19:06.420 I was doing this work before AI was so commonplace in media. It would not be surprising to me if

00:19:12.960 a brand like Essence were to be like, listen, we're going to have 100 images of celebrities

00:19:18.300 who get the caption from this festival. Let's just run it into ChatGPT and pull from there

00:19:23.240 to make this quick. That would not surprise me at all. And again, no shade. That would not be

00:19:28.220 any different than I'm sure any other media company is doing right now. That is not anything

00:19:33.180 to be ashamed of. That's something bad. I'm not even calling them out. It just is a reality of

00:19:38.340 how brands and media companies are likely right now already using AI, if not experimenting with

00:19:46.240 it, and certainly how they're going to be using it going forward, I'm pretty sure.

00:19:50.220 And because media companies and brands are already using this technology to communicate with us,

00:19:57.100 the public, I wanted to play a little game, do a little experiment that I think

00:20:01.840 will just be another bit of evidence as to why I feel so strongly that this post was

00:20:08.640 generated by AI. So I went over to ChatGPT, and I asked ChatGPT to come up with a short social

00:20:16.140 media post about Viola Davis, her outfit at Cannes. So first, when I put it in, I said,

00:20:23.300 make a post about how good Viola Davis' outfit looked at Cannes as a Black woman.

00:20:27.540 the first thing that they gave me was very kind of formal. It was like, let's take a moment to

00:20:33.100 appreciate the incomparable Viola Davis, a true embodiment of elegance and beauty, who raced the

00:20:39.000 red carpet at this year's Cannes Film Festival. As a fellow Black woman, I couldn't help but be in

00:20:43.520 awe of her captivating presence and radiant charm. So this, what I just said, do it as a Black woman, 0.94

00:20:49.400 it was giving me, you know, still pretty polished, like standard English. It was just,

00:20:55.500 The speaker is just referencing that they are a black woman, which obviously is not what this post sounds like.

00:21:01.640 So then I was like, ah, same thing, but give it to me in AAVE, African-American vernacular English or like slang.

00:21:10.580 Listen to the difference in this and what they gave me.

00:21:15.380 So this you're going to read what ChatGPT gave you in response to that prompt.

00:21:19.440 That's right. Slay in the can scene.

00:21:22.200 Viola Davis looking snatched, hands emoji, fingernail painting emoji. Y'all, let's take a

00:21:28.080 hot minute to give some major props to our girl Viola Davis, straight killing it at the Cannes 1.00

00:21:33.120 Film Festival. Fire emoji. She came through dripping with all that melanin magic, serving 1.00

00:21:38.560 looks that got a shouting, yes, queen. Viola was straight up flawless, rocking that red carpet like 0.64

00:21:44.240 nobody's business. She had a swooning and a jaw-dropping gown that hugged all of her curves 0.99

00:21:49.300 just right. And can we talk about that melanin glow? Her skin was popping like a summer sunset.

00:21:54.820 Viola's talent is on a whole nother level, and nother is like apostrophe than N-O-T-H-E-R, 0.98

00:22:01.780 a whole nother level, and she ain't afraid to speak truth to power. She's using her platform 0.74

00:22:06.420 to shine a light on important issues and make a difference. That's what we call a real boss lady. 1.00

00:22:12.420 Y'all ain't ready for the slayage that Viola Davis brought to Cannes. Her outfit had us all 1.00

00:22:17.240 shook melaton popping confidence on fleek hashtag viola davis hashtag canfield festival hashtag

00:22:23.240 slaying it so i don't think i need to tell you that i feel like there's a lot going on

00:22:31.160 in what chat gpt gave us but well do you have a reaction to it like what do you think what are

00:22:36.180 your thoughts it's a lot uh yeah it really sounded kind of similar to the post we were talking about

00:22:46.920 but it referenced melanin three times.

00:22:51.240 Repetition.

00:22:52.420 Right, okay, it's generous.

00:22:54.620 Something that jumps out at me

00:22:56.300 that I think is very similar to the Essence magazine

00:23:00.100 Facebook post that I believe was generated by AI

00:23:02.380 was that it takes things that are,

00:23:04.780 I wouldn't say disparate,

00:23:06.360 but it just, it adds a lot in.

00:23:09.260 Like, it's like, it's not,

00:23:12.380 I don't know that someone would say in a,

00:23:16.300 if they were making a social media post, I would be surprised if someone was using this many slang

00:23:23.460 words. Like, if you're saying, yes, queen, adding something that is on fleek, that's like a hat on a

00:23:31.340 hat. Like, it's just like, I don't know a person who would speak that way. And I think I see a lot

00:23:37.640 of the similar repetition of things that we got in that Essence post to what I've just generated

00:23:43.420 from ChatGBD. It just seems very similar to me. It seems similar in the ways of making little

00:23:52.140 references to things that are not totally slang. They kind of sound like slang, and if you read it

00:24:00.500 quickly, you might be like, oh, that sounds like what you would expect. But then when you actually

00:24:07.020 parse it, you're like, well, do I actually know anybody who speaks like this? Is this what a human

00:24:11.400 would actually say? Or is this what AI pulling from parts of the culture, parts of like everything

00:24:18.160 that's out there about what is the perception of what it sounds like to be a Black woman speaking

00:24:22.620 in AAVE about something that she likes? It just feels like someone doing a bad impression of Black

00:24:32.560 women and the way that we talk online. It really reminds me a lot of what Shafika Hudson described

00:24:37.020 in our episode about and Father's Day as she describes it as obviously racist word salad.

00:24:44.460 Like there's something about this that chat GPT, the content that chat GPT spit out that

00:24:50.620 just reads like a Black woman impersonation word salad. 0.96

00:24:55.800 Like it makes all of the things on their own make sense. 1.00

00:24:59.640 But when you zoom out and you're like, well, is that really what someone would string together

00:25:04.840 if they were trying to create a social post?

00:25:07.020 in my opinion probably not yeah that's really astute i think you nailed it it's like a

00:25:13.180 a hat on a hat like it just goes on and on with multiple metaphors uh multiple things that sound

00:25:22.660 like they could be slang but maybe aren't and yeah it's and when you zoom out it looks like

00:25:31.840 what a large language model trained on a corpus of perceptions of what Black women might sound like.

00:25:42.660 And again, as cringy as all of this sounds, and I know it sounds very cringy,

00:25:48.240 I'm not even necessarily pointing all of this out to call out Essence or any media company. Because

00:25:54.160 again, Essence is not doing anything that I don't think any other media company

00:25:58.520 out there is doing. I think this is commonplace. I think there are times when it is more obvious

00:26:04.400 than others. But I think this is something that we're going to have to train ourselves to

00:26:12.300 be aware of and critical of and be thinking about as we consume media, as we go forward

00:26:20.980 in this particular moment in our shared tech world. Yeah. I keep thinking about

00:26:28.520 What does it mean that it packed all of those different metaphors and illusions and idioms in there?

00:26:36.460 And like, maybe that's what it looks like when part of the prompt to chat GPT or one of these large language models is to try to sound like a particular group is that it just really hyper focuses on that part of the assignment.

00:26:52.460 And so it just keeps like hammering on it over and over again in a really unnaturalistic way.

00:27:01.860 And I also think that, you know, it's particularly salient when you're talking about the way that marginalized groups communicate with each other.

00:27:13.040 You know, if you ask ChatGPT to say something in a stereotypical, you know, like, give it to me in AAVE or give it to me as a gay person, or I just think that it's easy to recognize when someone is being a caricature of a marginalized person when we're seeing it on television or in a movie.

00:27:34.660 I don't know that it's easy to recognize it in text that is generated by AI, but I think that the same way that we are thinking about it when we consume movies and television, we should be thinking about it, I guess, or now we're going to have to be thinking about it as we just consume content out in the world in this era going forward.

00:28:00.120 Yeah, I think we've all been seeing headlines for the past, I don't know, five or six months now, ever since AI really just like exploded into the public discourse with these publicly available tools.

00:28:13.200 you know we've all heard the messaging that we need to start using ai and figure out how to work

00:28:19.760 ai into our professional workflows so that we can be using it more and be that much more efficient

00:28:25.940 and effective and productive than people who aren't using it who are going to fall away like

00:28:32.640 dinosaurs and relics and you know i think a lot of people are kind of questioning how true is that

00:28:40.780 and what does that even mean but yeah you can't blame essence for uh experimenting with it and

00:28:48.940 you know trying to put ai to work for them if that's what they were doing which you know like

00:28:54.980 you said it seems like they probably were uh so yeah it's not so shameful it's probably a little

00:29:00.560 embarrassing that they published something that they then had to go back and edit but like you

00:29:05.280 know people do embarrassing stuff all the time so i should also say that the idea like this post

00:29:11.280 this is not even really coming from me as i said i'm a former social media editor and so i'm still

00:29:17.660 in a lot of these big like online professional groups dedicated to social media management and

00:29:22.780 like best practices and all of that that is where i first saw this post that is where it first came

00:29:28.160 on my radar somebody not me posted a screenshot of the original essence magazine facebook post

00:29:34.920 put it in the group and they were like yo is essence in here like this is a really weird post

00:29:41.920 and so everybody was roasting it so certainly wasn't just me and the consensus of social media

00:29:49.780 industry professionals was that it was written by ai so i can't even take credit for for that as an

00:29:55.540 idea i wish i could i definitely would have seen that and thought something's up but the reality

00:30:01.500 is, is that a large group of social media professionals were roasting it and said it

00:30:06.740 was AI. I happen to be one of them, but this is not just coming from me. This was like an online

00:30:12.800 consensus of the space. So I'm sorry. I'm sure that if you, like for Essence Magazine, I'm sure

00:30:18.800 that it's like difficult to hear. Nobody wants to hear that their post was being roasted by a bunch

00:30:23.720 of their peers, but I hate to break it to you. That is what was going on. I'm suddenly concerned

00:30:28.700 that it might have actually been written by a human

00:30:30.640 who is now devastated that everyone thinks they're a robot

00:30:34.120 and perhaps they're questioning themselves.

00:30:36.540 You know, they should be taking one of those catch-butt tests

00:30:40.380 that are supposed to see if you're a robot.

00:30:42.140 It's like, oh, do you dream of electric sheep?

00:30:43.880 God, it's so hard.

00:30:46.300 You always fail those.

00:30:47.900 This is like, I sometimes think that you might be a robot

00:30:51.640 because I know when you have those tests,

00:30:54.980 you're like, I guess I can't go to this website.

00:30:57.300 Yeah, they're the worst.

00:30:58.140 Because I feel like, yeah, I marked all of the tiles that have bridges in them, but like somehow I still fail.

00:31:05.460 I don't know.

00:31:05.840 It seems unfair.

00:31:09.540 More after a quick break.

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00:32:01.800 if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality

00:32:05.600 welcome home this is prose society the weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat

00:32:13.120 for thought daughters pop culture obsessives and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and

00:32:17.380 love island deserve the same level of discourse i'm eli rallo and every week we're connecting

00:32:22.340 the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

00:32:27.340 I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors

00:32:31.960 and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.

00:32:37.260 It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a

00:32:43.460 Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations,

00:32:48.360 or a community of readers who love to think a little too much,

00:32:52.280 you're in the right place.

00:32:53.940 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app,

00:32:56.900 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:32:59.880 See you between the pages.

00:33:01.980 When I was 14 years old,

00:33:04.240 I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:33:07.780 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring

00:33:10.460 how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:33:14.040 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. 0.70

00:33:17.700 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything.

00:33:26.280 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

00:33:30.540 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:33:35.100 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:33:42.520 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:33:46.360 but these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:33:50.020 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:33:53.620 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart

00:33:56.360 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:34:06.960 Let's get right back into it.

00:34:09.600 Okay, so this is a little bit more than just my personal petty beef with Essence Magazine.

00:34:16.360 because I think we're going to be seeing more and more media companies and brands using AI to

00:34:22.320 communicate with their audiences. Again, I don't believe that there's anything inherently in and

00:34:28.260 of itself wrong with that. In fact, I was kind of hoping, you know, when we talked about this

00:34:33.240 in the podcast, that this could be a moment of media transparency, which is always a good thing.

00:34:38.320 Everybody everywhere right now is talking about how we're all going to need to be using AI in

00:34:41.760 our work more. You know, we need to get behind it. I can't tell you how many times that is like,

00:34:46.360 what I have heard, like prepare yourself for the AI revolution, blah, blah, blah.

00:34:50.100 It would not surprise me if people at Essence are like, oh, we need to be experimenting with how

00:34:55.400 we are using AI in our work. Maybe it can make our work more efficient, effective, whatever.

00:35:00.660 I did not bring it up because I thought it was some huge scandal. I did not bring it up because

00:35:04.940 I wanted to embarrass Essence, maybe a little bit. But, you know, publishing on social media

00:35:10.300 it is inherently ridiculous and embarrassing, right? Like I think if you are posting on public

00:35:17.040 social media accounts, there's always going to be that slip up, that thing of like, that sounded

00:35:22.680 really cringy. That is part of the process. Pointing that out, pointing out the messiness

00:35:26.980 and cringiness that is inherent in posting on social media is not a bad thing. In fact,

00:35:32.500 I think that transparency would actually help us have a better understanding of this moment that

00:35:37.540 we are in when it comes to tech and how it is going to shape how media companies and brands

00:35:42.000 engage with their audiences. I think for me, it is really about transparency. You know, I was

00:35:48.480 hopeful, like when I saw that, oh, busted comment that Essence left on my Instagram, I was hopeful

00:35:54.080 that we were going to be getting a moment of transparency. But then they accused me, Bridget, 0.76

00:35:59.500 of misreporting and spreading misinformation. And so I just can't ignore that. Not just because

00:36:06.960 I'm a petty bitch, which I am, but because I didn't say that it was definitely 100% definitively 0.96

00:36:13.160 written by AI. I just said that I thought, in my opinion, that it seemed like it was written 0.93

00:36:17.920 by AI. And it does. It still does to me. That's still my opinion. But they accused me of something

00:36:24.940 that I take pretty seriously. And like I was saying before, when we're talking about marginalized

00:36:29.740 communities especially, I do think that there is a level of trust that you have with your community

00:36:36.340 that you're speaking to that is just important to honor. You know, no one wants to feel like

00:36:41.080 AI is being used to mimic them or to mock them or to create a kind of cruel, hollow stereotype

00:36:48.980 about how the world sees them. You know, that a piece of technology is just spitting out

00:36:54.180 what they think the world thinks about how we sound. You know, that's not an authentic

00:36:59.760 version of who I am, that is just a fun house mirror image of how the world sees me. And we

00:37:07.700 know our society is so full of biases. I don't want to be kind of tricked into connecting with a 0.81

00:37:16.500 hollow false depiction that is simply recreating what our biased society already thinks about how

00:37:25.040 I sound as a Black woman. For the sake of argument, to be clear, I am not saying that

00:37:29.220 this is what happened. But let's just say for the sake of argument that they were hiring

00:37:32.400 white male social media editors who were then using AI to mimic how they thought Black women

00:37:40.200 spoke and Black women's speech patterns. I probably would not be the only person who like 0.83

00:37:45.860 wasn't super comfortable with that dynamic, right? I don't like the idea of, you know, being a Black 1.00

00:37:52.260 woman navigating the internet and then engaging with or identifying with a speaker who I assume

00:38:00.880 is also a Black woman like me, but is actually AI, right? Like that doesn't, that's not something

00:38:06.720 that sits well with me. That's not something that makes me feel seen or comfortable. So I think

00:38:11.720 especially when it's brands where their whole thing is about making a marginalized community

00:38:19.340 feel seen and feel supported and heard and amplified, I do think there needs to be a little

00:38:25.220 bit of transparency around the use of AI there, if that is what's going on. And so all of that is to

00:38:31.040 say, Essence, you tell me, was that weird post written by AI or was it published by a human

00:38:39.720 editor and that's how it got on Facebook? I just want to know. You accused me of misreporting

00:38:45.620 something, I would be so pleased to come on here and say, looks like I got it wrong. This is the

00:38:53.880 human who wrote that. They were having a weird night. They misspelled her name, whatever. I've

00:38:59.640 been there. Part of the reason why I want to know is because I've been there. If you want to hear

00:39:04.780 some stories about epic work fuck-ups on the social media account, talk to my old boss at

00:39:10.680 MSNBC. She will have some stories for you because I've been there. I've done it. So if that's what's

00:39:15.420 going on totally willing to correct the record and and even that is like a transparency thing

00:39:23.200 like i'll never forget my second favorite social media mess up was a tweet from i think it was the

00:39:28.980 boston globe where they were using they wanted to say their authorities are investigating but for

00:39:35.520 some reason they tweeted invest farting and they had to come back on and be like we're not deleting

00:39:42.820 the tweet. Like we saw the tweet. It was, it was incorrect, but we're not deleting it because it's

00:39:48.720 already been retweeted so many times that it would be pointless. So yeah, we're just leaving it up

00:39:53.820 and then left it up. And I respected it because a little transparency. You need to just be like,

00:39:58.200 oh yeah, we got this wrong. Here's what happened. Our bad. And move forward. That is the point of

00:40:03.660 social media. Not to get so defensive and then so cagey when things don't come off right. Social

00:40:12.460 media is one big test kitchen of trying things and seeing if they land, and they don't always

00:40:17.460 land. So just acknowledge that. So Bridget, what was your first favorite social media fuck-up?

00:40:23.520 Oh my god. It was the greatest day in social media history. It was when Yahoo News was

00:40:32.380 reporting about the Trump administration trying to have a bigger navy, but instead of the B in

00:40:40.540 the word bigger, they used an N and they tweeted it. And when I tell you that, like, even here,

00:40:47.960 here we go. When I Google it, one of the first things that comes up is an Essence magazine

00:40:52.560 article. So Essence, you're out there doing the good reporting on social media. Like, yep,

00:40:57.200 we're still laughing at Black Twitter's jokes following Yahoo Finance's Navy tweet, right? 0.88

00:41:02.580 That was, when I tell you, like, that was like one of those Twitter moments where you just had

00:41:05.900 to be there you really just had to like be there in 2017 when that happened I'll tell you this I

00:41:12.180 got no work done reading those tweets because they were too funny uh that was a pretty special

00:41:19.340 moment I think that was a pretty special moment and you know again I like Essence I think they

00:41:24.540 do good work sometimes I've heard some rumors that sometimes they don't always pay for that work but

00:41:29.160 that's not me saying that that's the internet saying that look it up yourself that's what the

00:41:33.020 streets say, not me. But ultimately, I think that in this moment, in the intersection of media and

00:41:40.660 technology, audiences deserve transparency. And audiences are smart enough to know when something's

00:41:46.640 up. All of those social media professionals, nobody told them that this was AI. We were smart

00:41:51.660 enough as savvy audiences to say, this doesn't sound right. Your audiences, you've got to trust

00:41:56.940 them. And you've got to trust that they are critical, savvy people. And so I think in this

00:42:02.840 moment where AI and all of this weird new stuff is happening with technology, it is imperative

00:42:10.020 that media companies really trust their audiences and respect their audiences and give us a little

00:42:15.040 bit of transparency. And I don't think it bodes well for how we move forward. If a little dog

00:42:20.300 Pony Show that is this podcast gently ribs Essence Magazine about maybe using AI. I'm like,

00:42:27.100 oh, it didn't sound good. If how they respond is to get super defensive, accuse me of spreading

00:42:33.820 misinformation, which I did not do, and then just like go silent. I want this to be a dialogue.

00:42:40.380 Essence Magazine can totally come on the show. But I have to say, until I get some information,

00:42:48.460 some clarifying information from them, I will go to my grave believing this was written by AI.

00:42:54.060 I am sorry. It is my opinion. I don't know. As I said, I have no proof. But I think that we would

00:43:00.140 both be in agreement that that post didn't sound right. They edited it. Yeah. So I guess that's

00:43:05.860 really the bottom line. This is not just about my petty beef with them. It is about what we can

00:43:11.560 expect from brands, what transparency we can expect. And I think early on, we should be

00:43:17.140 establishing some norms about that transparency, right? Like I personally do think that media

00:43:24.020 companies should come up with some kind of an understanding of how they will communicate when

00:43:28.360 something has been generated by AI to their audiences. The same thing that we were talking

00:43:32.320 about on the newscast last week about whether or not platforms should include a watermark when an

00:43:38.660 image is AI generated. You believe that they should? Yeah, I absolutely do. I was thinking

00:43:43.820 about that you know it's like when you have an ai generated image like there was that one uh we

00:43:50.580 talked about last week of desantis the desantis campaign posting those images of trump like

00:43:56.240 hugging and kissing fauci uh there should be a watermark indicating that like that they're fake

00:44:03.160 images right and it shouldn't uh just fall on the end user in the public to figure out like what is

00:44:10.940 real and what is fake that's uh but unfortunately i guess that's kind of where we're at right that's

00:44:16.360 like one of the key skills of literacy in 2023 is distinguishing what's real what's fake what was

00:44:25.300 written by a robot what wasn't i would argue that it shouldn't be media literacy is important but

00:44:30.220 it shouldn't be up to your average person to be so critically engaged with the media that they

00:44:35.120 mindlessly consume that's not how media consumption always works you'll always have that moment when

00:44:39.540 you're on the toilet or just in the checkout line or haven't had your coffee where you

00:44:44.220 see something quickly and you're like, wait, what?

00:44:46.560 It should not be up to individuals to have to parse that.

00:44:50.060 And I think that we need to start establishing some guardrails and some guidelines for how

00:44:55.440 brands and platforms are going to ethically and responsibly use AI going forward.

00:45:02.560 And we got to do it soon.

00:45:03.620 I think that's what this whole kerfuffle with me and Essence really comes down to.

00:45:10.960 You know, if I have to be the poster person for those guardrails, so be it.

00:45:16.940 I'll do it.

00:45:18.340 Well, good luck to you.

00:45:19.320 We need it.

00:45:21.260 Right?

00:45:21.520 It's hard.

00:45:21.980 It's hard to know.

00:45:23.200 We need some guardrails.

00:45:24.660 And so Todd versus Essence.

00:45:28.280 Here we go.

00:45:29.040 The ultimate beef.

00:45:30.320 The ultimate beef.

00:45:31.340 Tune into season two of Beef, and it'll just be like a slow burn style breakdown between me and my beef with Essence magazine.

00:45:40.120 But listen, no, but in all seriousness, I want to know what folks think.

00:45:43.120 I'll put a copy of the original post in the Patreon.

00:45:46.860 Take a look.

00:45:47.500 I'll do a poll.

00:45:48.740 You do not have to subscribe or be a paying member to see this.

00:45:52.480 It'll be a public post.

00:45:53.840 That's how much I want to know what y'all think.

00:45:56.060 You can find the link to the Patreon to vote and see the post in the description for this episode.

00:46:00.420 Do you think it was AI generated or do you not?

00:46:03.580 I cannot be the only one who thinks this.

00:46:05.880 But if you really think it was just a sloppy human, I want to know that too.

00:46:09.020 Let's get to the bottom of this together.

00:46:10.960 In essence, call me.

00:46:15.980 Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi?

00:46:19.420 You can reach us at hello at tangody.com.

00:46:21.700 You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangody.com.

00:46:25.140 There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.

00:46:27.620 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:46:30.420 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

00:46:32.660 Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.

00:46:35.260 Michael Amato is our contributing producer.

00:46:37.280 I'm your host, Bridget Todd.

00:46:39.100 If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

00:46:42.680 For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:47:00.840 I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive

00:47:07.540 what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:47:13.160 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled,

00:47:19.160 and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:47:24.100 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app,

00:47:29.100 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:47:32.680 If your bookshelf and your For You page

00:47:34.480 are equally important to your personality,

00:47:36.740 welcome home.

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00:47:42.100 for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice

00:47:43.800 and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:47:46.600 Each week, we're connecting the dots

00:47:47.980 between books, the internet, and pop culture

00:47:50.080 with your favorite writers, book talk creators,

00:47:52.800 and plenty of overthought opinions.

00:47:54.860 Yeah, I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed.

00:47:56.320 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:48:03.440 Dancing with the Stars is looking for a new pro.

00:48:06.520 And since last season, I came in eighth place.

00:48:09.140 I'm basically an expert.

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00:48:12.820 And we have a new podcast called Stepping on Toes with Danielle and Val.

00:48:16.700 Every week, we're breaking down Dancing with the Stars, the next pro,

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - June 14, 2023

Real Life Beef： Bridget vs Essence Magazine - Listeners demand the truth about that weird 'Vila Davis' postazine

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Transcript