The New Yorker 2026-04-26-2
A.I. Is Making Influencing Even Faker
A 300,000-member Facebook group, organized Discord pornbot mentorships, and a fictional Army recruiter with a million followers reveal the same structural shift: race, body type, and demographic archetype have become A/B-testable parameters in attention monetization, with measurable conversion lift. The contrarian read isn't whether brands should use synthetic creators — it's that every brand running influencer marketing now has undisclosed synthetic exposure and zero audit infrastructure to price the liability. The provenance gap shows up brand-side, not consumer-side: consumers tolerate fake; CFOs underwriting the next campaign cannot.