With AI becoming ever more sophisticated we are inching ever closer to a world where it's impossible to know what's real—even when it's just a dress you buy online.
And it's not just your Boomer parents getting scammed. They're even bamboozling celebrities like Melissa Joan Hart!
The actor went viral after she shared the dress she purchased online that looked absolutely nothing like the AI-generated photo on the website. But like, absolutely nothing.
In an Instagram post, the Clarissa Explains It All star shared a series of photos showing the Christmas dress she thought she purchased, an ornate, embroidered red and green dress with a scooping neckline and full skirt.
All over the dress is intricately sewn holiday designs like Christmas trees and swirling lines meant to look like frost. It even has 3D flowers sewn on top for that extra flourish.
Hart wrote in her caption that she ordered the ornate dress for a "fancy ugly [Christmas] sweater look." Problem is, the image is very obviously AI if you know what to look for. And sure enough, what did Hart receive instead?
@melissajoanhart/Instagram
A probably flammable, definitely dirt cheap piece of synthetic fabric with a pattern that could MAYBE be construed as similar to the image in the ad if you squint really hard and also are delusional.
The thing looks more like a cheap beach coverup than a fancy dress. Or maybe a nightgown from a particularly cheap Walmart.
Most of us who are under, say 55 years of age or so have had to do battle with our elderly relatives to get them to stop falling for AI slop. But Hart, at 49, is still pretty young to be falling for these scams!
And people online couldn't help but notice clues that Hart proooooobably should've picked up on.
Naturally, people found the dress online immediately, and discovered that its retailer is a company that sells items for "99% off." Wow! What a business model! Why, it's almost like this was utter nonsense from the very start...
Don't take it to "hart" if you're reading this, Ms. Hart. Anyone could have been fooled by this!
On social media, people couldn't help but laugh with Hart... and maybe laugh AT her too, just the tiniest bit.
@ryryrobert/Instagram
@cassielayne_/Instagram
@frances132/Instagram
@anythingbutplain_jane/Instagram
Anyway, while she may have been bamboozled, Hart was not deterred. In a follow-up Instagram post, she shared that she'd gotten right to work "creating my own 'ugly' dress since online let me down!," using a combination of sewing and crafting supplies.
Leave it to the iconic teenage witch herself to pull some Christmas magic out of her hat!
@joehas/X