You Really Think Someone Would Do That? Just Go On the Internet and Tell Lies? Part Two

I have complained, at length and on many occasions, about Facebook’s attempts to get me to engage with their platform more- which involved flooding my feed with random posts from people I don’t know and groups I’m not part of, which I can’t get rid of or turn off. It’s mostly useless garbage (lunch specials from restaurants in other countries; groups where people complain that their Starbucks order wasn’t right; people asking asinine questions that they could Google the answers to in five seconds) with some truly offensive nonsense that I end up reporting and occasionally something (unintentionally) funny.

Recently, I’ve been getting posts in the unintentionally funny realm. I’m often presented with poorly-made AI images that portend to be real art/photographs- like one I saw recently that was a really wonky looking half wood, half skin sculpture next to a clearly computer generated girl claiming that this was a real statue the OP had made of his daughter, standing next to his daughter. That was a weird one-off, but I’ve been getting a LOT of AI-generated tiny houses, and I’m obsessed with them.

I don’t know much about tiny houses, besides the fact that the term does have some semblance of meaning and doesn’t just mean “This house is kind of small.” This is more than many of the people generating images for their Facebook pages know. The images are always the same in their setup: it’s as through you sliced off one of the smaller walls of a rectangular house and took a picture of the interior from where that wall used to be. From there, it’s the wild west. Some actually look roughly the size of a tiny house, with a small kitchen, a little sitting area, and a loft for sleeping. Some look like massive apartments or condos, which might legitimately be smaller than most houses, but that definitely don’t obey the spirit of a tiny house.

Then we get to the AI mess of it all. Many of the houses have zero railings for the loft- you get out of bed and have a few feet of floor and then a straight drop down. That one also has a staircase that isn’t really anchored to anything, plus weird choices in terms of windows and having candles sitting on the stairs. I’m having trouble finding some of the other pages with the really bad ones, but you’ll see stuff like staircases that go into the ceiling, or a staircase next to a ladder, or a ladder that runs into a rail with no opening, or a staircase that ends in a fireplace, or dozens of Christmas trees scattered around, or kitchens with countertops clipping through ovens, or kitchens with no ovens or fridges, or kitchens that are just sinks, or weird decorative touches that are obviously not based in the real world… on and on and on. The pictures could definitely be used as interior design inspiration, but it’s very clear that they’re not real images of actual houses. They also never have captions- the accounts just churn out AI-generated image after AI-generated image. (Why? I genuinely don’t know.)

The images themselves are whatever; I don’t find the existence of AI images compelling or interesting. But the comments! A veritable treasure trove.

First, you have the floods of people who just comment “Nice,” “So beautiful,” “I love the color,” etc. There’s also the negative people who are spending their time on this planet looking at AI images and writing stuff like “I HATE the color” or “I would NEVER have that many plants” or “Can we get rid of that COUCH.” They could have just scrolled on, but they chose violence.

Then you have the people who think the images are real, and will comment things like “Where to buy” and “How do I order?” and “Cost????” (usually with very interesting spelling and grammar). I would like more information about these people. I assume (most of them) know the images are computer generated, not photographs of real model houses, but perhaps they think that these are mockups designed to look lived-in and more appealing to potential customers. If so, do they think a Facebook group called “Tiny House Love” or something, that posts dozens and dozens of completely different houses with no captions and no other information- not even a model name, like “This is Model 384, our x by y square foot floor plan- is a legitimate business? Do they think a friendly representative is going to respond to their comment? “Hi, Hailey! I saw you commented ‘HOW MUCH COST’ on our post! Let me send you a quote and we’ll be ready to go on the tiny house of your dreams!”

But these aren’t even my favorite comments. My favorites are the people who somehow don’t seem aware that these are fake images created for entertainment purposes only, not actual houses you can buy, and have notes. Some point out the same issues I already did: “So cute but dangerous without a railing on the loft!” There’s no railing because it’s a fake image, that didn’t have to obey building codes. “I don’t understand how you would use the ladder?” You wouldn’t! It’s fake. “Where’s the fridge?” There isn’t one; this is a fake image and not a home people live in. “Can we see another angle?” No, because it doesn’t exist; this is not a real house.

And then some people come in guns blazing, absolutely furious that these sloppily mass-produced AI-generated don’t conform to their idea of a real home. “WHERE IS THE BATHROOM?” “YOU COULD NEVER BUILD WITHOUT A RAILING!” “THIS IS NOT A TINY HOME!! IT’S TOO BIG!!” Some people even jump from post to post warning how “dangerous” or “awful” the designs are. I understand that AI images can be difficult to spot sometimes, but these are so clearly not real and on a random page that’s full of other fake images (which usually have at least one person in the comments letting people know the images are fake)- they’re just very much not actual houses. This is like a kindergartner drawing their house and someone calls the building department to report an unsafe structure. That is a drawing, not a building. It’s not an architectural or engineering plan; it’s an interpretation of what a machine thinks a house might look like. Let’s all try some deep breathing and count slowly to ten.

Bonus! One of these pages- the one I linked to- is called “Win Tiny Houses,” though it does nothing else to support the charade that anyone could actually win anything- it’s just AI images with no captions and then stolen videos of real tiny houses that are not part of any contest. And the comments still have people asking how to enter- to win a house that’s clearly not real- and on occasion (my favorite) people writing long prayers asking God to help them win the competition to get a tiny house. A fake competition. For a fake house. Okay!