this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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Fuck AI

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Left is the picture from the posting, right is google street view.

This shit really ruins everything, luckily it's bad enough in this case to easily spot. AI gibberish on the sign, no small balcony in front, rock wall next to the street missing, pretty mountain in the background that doesn't exist, weird blue pole.

I hate how this turns the whole internet adversarial, even more so than it already was. You really need to double- and triple-check everything and trust nothing, unless you want to turn up some place and get let down. I really don't understand what drives people to do something like this. And I don't know how this can go any other way than the internet just becoming completely useless.

Bonus pics from inside:

Note how the lamp seems to have grown more leaves in between shots, and how the fireplace door wraps around the corner in one picture, but not in the other, as well as lacking any handle to open it.

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[–] HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago

The weirdest thing is that this looks like just any old barn in Austria, so why even bother?

[–] NoForwadSlashS@piefed.social 69 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

The AI is already disturbing, but why did it add a tarantula trapped in the street light?

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 6 points 1 day ago

me, an aussie being like… tarantula? looks like a huntsman, and then looking up at the big boy currently chilling in the corner of the living room to check

Someone must have misspelled Austria as Australia. Classic blunder.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 days ago

Ai has a knack for the terrifying. I really think it's because of the large Volume of training material they stole from deviantart

[–] Onsotumenh@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The shadow of the lamp is one of those old american park-o-meters!

[–] Drusas@fedia.io 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I could not for the life of me figure out what OP was talking about with tarantulas, so thank you. It's just the shadow of a parking meter.

[–] Onsotumenh@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 day ago

Oh no, that one is there. Zoom in and look at the glass dome of the lamp. You can see the spider inside.

[–] kieron115@startrek.website 2 points 1 day ago

That’s just Dave, the security guard.

[–] Vinylraupe@lemmy.zip 11 points 2 days ago

Bro is seeing the details damn O.O

[–] Rothe@piefed.social 78 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Scammers are going to make so much money from AI. It is a tool that seems primarily intended for nefarious purposes, with very few actually constructive and positive uses. Because for scamming purposes it doesn't have to be perfect, but in any constructive use cases it does. And since it will never become perfect, it will mainly be used for this kind of nonsense.

[–] ickplant@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It’s even better if it’s not perfect for scamming purposes. Filters out intelligent and educated people who can spot it. Just like when scammers misspell words and use poor grammar on purpose.

[–] copd@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Everyone who spots more than 0 AI scams will give them false confidence where they can spot them all - "AI slop" yada yada

When in reality, lots of people people will never know the AI ads/scams they missed and fell for, especially if the product recieved is somewhat close.

AI is a lot more invasive than you think it is, as it improves it'll only blur the lines on what's real and what's not and you'll start thinking real things are AI

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

toupee fallacy - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/toupee_fallacy

[–] Drusas@fedia.io 1 points 1 day ago

I don't think being intelligent or educated necessarily helps you spot AI slop. It's just a new sort of pattern to learn to recognize.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 20 points 2 days ago

DLSS5 for Air BNB.

[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 61 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I really don’t understand what drives people to do something like this

Money. It's just a scam, straight up. Glad you spotted it.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What happens when you book this and turn up at the location?

[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 2 points 1 day ago

You discover that it doesn't exist and you have to make last minute alternate arrangements.

Airbnb will try to help you, but if it's during a busy season, you are kinda fucked. Once my airbnb host for a 5 bedroom house cancelled last minute and airbnb was like "don't worry, we can get you alternate accomodations" and recommended me to a field that we could camp at, lol.

You'd probably get refunded by Airbnb, and they'd ultimately pay the monetary price of the scam, but yeah, trying to find a hotel or b&b with space at the last minute would be mega stressful. Worst comes to worst, you sleep in the car.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 28 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Totally unnecessary too. Looked like a decent place in the normal pics. Hope whatever site this was one responds strongly when this is reported. Also seems they need better screening in place as that should have been easily detectable.

[–] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Most of the actual photographs are of the view, though. I wonder if most of the interior is gross.

[–] Prontomomo@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Looks like they used AI specifically to upscale the original images, or get a different angle, or remove something they didn’t like in the original image.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

if it were upscaled, it wouldn’t:

  • remove the balcony
  • remove the stone wall next to the path
  • add the mountain in the background
  • add a completely wrong shadow for the bus stop

they’re all just straight up fabrications… i’d guess it was a “like this” or “in the style of” request with reference photos

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago

If you use a tool that generates AI images instead of one that just does upscaling to do upscaling then I'd expect this.

[–] vatlark@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Wow I knew they were virtually staging houses for sale, which I thought was fine until I realized the process doesn't just add furniture, it also cleans up imperfections in the house.

AI photos for a short term rental seems like fraud by default

[–] justsomeguy@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The imperfections aren't as much the issue as the scaling. There was a thread at some point where someone asked how hard it would be to diy their bathroom after getting an AI suggestion. The problem with it was that AI essentially took a tiny room and scaled down everything to make it look big. For the generated picture to make sense the toilet and sink would have to be comically small but because every detail was scaled down it wasn't noticeable to the OP until others pointed it out and they could only point it out because of the before-picture.

If you look at an AI house listing they often have a very clean minimalist design but the size doesn't check out.

[–] vatlark@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yeah... Its also hard to know scale if you are looking at a picture of bare walls but yeah tiny furniture doesn't help.

Also the fish-eye lenses they use don't help

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago

Those pictures are legit disorienting to look at.

[–] dumnezero@piefed.social 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] JustTesting@lemmy.hogru.ch 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I don't even know that this is a scam, or just a very misguided attempt by someone to make nicer pictures of their place. At least going by the original posting, it could well be that it actually exists and is not a bad place. Not that I'd ever go for this. No reviews is probably the biggest other tell. It's also on booking.com which magically mentions reviews from somewhere, though it says it got the listing from interhome, which does not have reviews. All very weird.

In any case, I've reported it for inappropriate images, I wonder if anything will be done.

Some of the other pictures are just as weird, e.g. all the reflections of the bathroom mirror just don't make sense (in terms of brightness/clarity)

[edit] They forwarded my concerns to the person who created the offering. Well, thanks for nothing.

[–] RobertoOberto@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I wonder if anything will be done.

If they get a cut of the booking cost, then they have no incentive to dissuade listing creators from doing whatever the fuck they can to get renters to pull out the credit card.

They already have your money by the time you arrive at your rental and realize the listing was complete horseshit. Most people either can't or won't change their planned accomodations that late in their trip.

So you stay in your falsely advertised hovel and complain to the booking company afterward, who says, "we don't create the listings, inaccuracies in them aren't our fault."

Nothing will change until the problem is pervasive enough that bookings drop as a result AND the reduced revenue is correctly attributed to it by shareholders AND they pressure the C-suite to implement policy changes accordingly.

[–] LordMayor@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago

Well, of course. Scammers created it, after all. It’s their child.

Or, it might be more accurate to say they adopted it forcibly.