Impossibly Cute Kittens and Weaponized Aww
Warning: this impossibly cute kitten is a weapon of psychological warfare!
I’ve been using AI image generators as a hobby for a while now, to create fun, interesting, otherwise-impractical-to-create pictures: an art-nouveau hobbit hole; a rainbow kitten parade; John Searle and Nietzche arguing with a hot lady robot — that kind of thing. It’s fascinating to see what’s possible using this tech, and invaluable as an artist (photographer) to augment my craft.
Setting aside the well-worn and ideologically unresolveable debate about intellectual property (don’t @ me), death of the artist, etc., I’m growing increasingly concerned about how these tools are being used. It’s easy to imagine how a synthetic image of a politician/public figure doing something bad (eg: swift nudes) could be dangerous, but I’m thinking about something more subtle and insidious — I’ll call it the “Impossibly Cute Kitten effect” (or ICK for short).
I’ve noticed some of my Facebook contacts sharing AI generated images with exclamations of “wow!” “cute!” “beautiful!” and the like, from a variety of pages like “eloquent houses” (did you mean “elegant”???), “the fun side”, and a variety of AI-generated girl named pages. It’s usually some impossibly-constructed elaborately decorated home, or an impossibly-beautiful plant/natural scene, or a collection of impossibly-cute, perfectly-posed kittens.
They’re lovely images — I’ve created some similar ones myself. But the pages in question are posting them with captions suggesting they’re real photos, and the comments indicate a *lot* of people believe them. So compelling they are, that people feel moved to share — and some even go viral, reaching tens or hundreds of thousands.
Most people know AI images exist now, so why are so many sharing these things uncritically? Because of the Impossibly Cute Kitten effect.
As rational as we think we individually are, a lot of our thinking is based on our aesthetic preferences rather than reasoned decision-making. Kittens, puppies, and babies of all kinds are inherently attractive to us — it’s part of our built-in biopsychology, compelling us to care for and nurture the young.
Evolutionarily, this is vital for our survival, but it’s also possible to hijack this instinct. The old trope about politicians shaking hands and kissing babies is an example of this: creating photo ops with adorable kids makes the voter swoon, and this is often far more influential than any discussion of a candidate’s policies. Strong emotions of any kind, in fact, *override* reason — making people like stuff that’s against their best interests, or believe outright lies.
It gets more intense with these new tools. The kittens aren’t just cute — they’re *impossibly* cute; algorithmically-optimized, ultra-pure, super-concentrated aww, with the ability to make even the knowing viewer feel a little fuzzy inside. Add a little caption with a heartwrenching narrative, or play to people’s aspirations or fears, and you’ve got a viral sensation!
It seems harmless — what evil could a fuzzy grey tabby do? But Felix is just the carrier, and the payload is much more sinister.
At minimum, these things can harvest information. Every time you interact with an ICK image, you get added to a list somewhere. Your friend list is scanned; your posting history is analyzed; your “likes” and comments are fed into an algorithm to make a dossier of you — what you like, where you go, how you vote, and what you’re willing to believe.
From there, they can target you with other stuff: a hot AI-generated babe has fallen madly in love with you, but just needs a thousand bux for plane tickets to come visit. This poor impossibly-cute puppy needs life-saving surgery, and you can donate to fund her vet bill. You could have the chance to live in this beautiful and cheap (yet geometrically impossible) apartment — just send your application fee to….
This isn’t limited to mere scammery though: these pages are part of a sophisticated network of manipulation — state and non-state actors fomenting turmoil, spreading political propaganda designed to distort reality beyond recognition, undermining trust in the very fact that you can know things at all!
If you “like” the ICK, the feed algorithm will show you more. If you share the ICK, your friends will also be exposed. Soon it’ll start recommending similar pages — perhaps ones with mildly political content, with similarly misleading imagery. Oh, but if you liked that, then here’s some other stuff — increasingly divorced from reality, and maybe playing on anger and disgust rather than cuteness. “Hey, look at this horrible and absurd thing the ‘woke mob’ is up to! Unbelievable!!!!”
But believe it they might…
It starts with an ICK, but can smoothly slide into racism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-democratic politics, conspiracy theories, or even radicalization to violence. Really icky stuff.
These techniques are part of what has produced Trump (and similar), the QAnon movement, flat earthers, climate change denial, and the overwhelming torrent of nonsense in the public discourse. The most powerful people on earth are the nameless, faceless figures behind this coordinated campaign of mass manipulation — and by sharing impossibly cute kittens, you’re helping them.
These are strange days, and they’re going to get stranger. It is now possible to produce fake images, audio, and even video to show absolutely anything you can imagine. Nothing on the internet can be trusted unless it’s been independently verified, and anything you share could be a vehicle for this massified psychological warfare.
It’s therefore vital to keep these facts in mind, and constantly practice critical thought. Look for signs of faulty geometry, implausible positioning, and other distortions in every image you see, and if you’re in doubt — just don’t touch it. If you see one of these viral pages on your feed, *immediately block it* — the momentary aww isn’t worth the dangers of ICK.
Your view of reality is the thing that makes you who you are. Keep it real, folks.
