I just got the kind of message that I would have accepted without question had it come five or ten years ago. It was through a social media messaging app-a-majig that I didn’t think I had installed; was sent to an account I barely use; and I’ve suppressed all notifications from this social media platform because checking on it once every two or three months is more than enough for me.

So it was pure luck that I happened to log in on the Friday after the Tuesday that these messages began, and that I even checked the notification back-log, because I’m used to seeing nothing but spam. But the algorithms have been getting better at the spam filter parts, at least a little, and I happened to see a message from a coroner in roughly the region of the country that I last remembered my stepfather living in…

Lots of things about this are fishy. Nobody contacts me through this social media site anymore; I’d expect to low on the next-of-kin list both by proximity and by recency of contact; and the fact that they included details like Full Legal Name, and Birthday hit my scam alarm bells as the kind of thing that is commonly used by scammers. Details like this make it seem like they have information that only an offical would have access to, but that are, in reality, real easy to find.

I haven’t yet figured out what the deal is. Right now it seems more legit than fake since googling the person and county involved has pulled up the kind of flimsy shell of a barely-website that small government agencies tend to have.

And yet, if you know as much as I do about how easy it is to use AI to spoof voices and scam people, you have to be extra vigilant about any story that makes you emotional that is delivered to you unsolicited. I keep telling myself that denial is one of the stages of grief, but my scientific training kicks in and points out that I need to follow the best processes I can, even if there is a bias skewing things. Data with an asterix is better than none.

This has been more of a ramble than a post. My asterix data and my gut agree that this seems legit, but my ‘is-this-likely-to-be-true’ process is full of disturbing uncertainties that didn’t used to be there. AI is so effectively deceptive (even now in its nascent state when it’s still very bad at deception) that we’re doubting reality in ways we never used to.

Doubting reality.

A certain amount of healthy skepticism should always be employed, but there used to be things we didn’t have to doubt. How many things like that are left? How many more are going to go away?

I never trust this stupid broken istrument when it comes to matters of love, or math, or when to tell of my boss, but my gut tells me this is real. My gut has some facts I was able to google on its side. But the office is closed for the weekend, so I won’t know for sure ’til Monday.

How much worse will this get before it gets better? Will we as humans adapt to the slop in a way that keeps us sharp without being permanently cynical?

Will we ever get to relax and just trust our senses?