Zoë Schiffer: I really want to hear Leah Feiger have to say Google Gemini Nano Banana Pro. I just feel like that set of words—
Leah Feiger: I won’t say it. I just won’t do it. Not for me.
Brian Barrett: We’ll get there.
Leah Feiger: Thanks.
Brian Barrett: Hold on. He makes this AI-generated woman, but finds out that none of the content is picking up steam, it’s not going anywhere, so he goes back to Gemini to ask the chatbot for advice. Gemini goes back and tells him that the pictures were too generic, but maybe he might get some traction if he tailored his AI-generated model to be more MAGA-coded. So you put her in a rifle range, you have her pounding some Coors lights, posting anti-abortion, anti-immigration messages, you get the idea. Would you believe that it took off like a rocket?
Zoë Schiffer: Oh, my Lord. This really is like the story of the times, and it’s so funny that Gemini was the one to suggest it.
Brian Barrett: Well, and here’s the thing. There are so many of these accounts. This one was named Emily Hart, and within a month had more than 10,000 Instagram followers, who then also subscribed to her Softcore AI-generated content on OnlyFans competitor Fanvue, but there are so many of these everywhere.
Zoë Schiffer: Wait, but Brian, do people know that it’s an AI model or do they think it’s a real woman?
Brian Barrett: A lot of them don’t seem to know, and the one they—
Leah Feiger: They seem very, very unsure.
Brian Barrett: Yes, and some of them are like, “I know, but I don’t care.”
Zoë Schiffer: Right. OK. OK. OK.
Brian Barrett: Because it’s not like you’re ever going to meet this person in real life, and I feel like at a certain point, this kind of customer, content consumer, it’s all an abstraction anyway at a certain point. But it is interesting how the MAGA-specific, and I want to say his MAGA-focused creation, hugely successful. He tried making a left-leaning counterpart. He tried doing the Democratic version, no one—
Zoë Schiffer: Didn’t work?
Brian Barrett: Did not work. Didn’t pan out. Everyone was like, “This looks like dumb AI.”
Leah Feiger: No, it only pays to be polarizing, which is such an interesting part of this whole grift, the idea that it’s a scam. This is entirely a scam. I’m so taken with the fact that this is from someone who so clearly has no horse in this race.
Zoë Schiffer: That’s our show for today. We’ll link to all the stories we spoke about in the show notes. Uncanny Valley is produced by Kaleidoscope Content. Adriana Tapia produced this episode. It was mixed by Amar Lal at Macrosound. It was fact checked by Matt Giles. Pran Bandi is our New York studio engineer. Marc Leyda is our San Francisco studio engineer. Kimberly Chua is our digital production senior manager. Kate Osborn is our executive producer, and Katie Drummond is WIRED’s global editorial director.