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Invasion of the AI rabbits!

stanfr

Illuminator
stanfr
Joined
Dec 10, 2008
Messages
3,542
I recently started selling plushies at a retail shop that I own, and apparently as a result of my wholesale purchases, I am now inundated with ubiquitous ads on social media sites and the internet in general for the fabulously realistic "Bunnypal" by Fanyil. The ads consist of incredibly realistic moving toy rabbits, which you can order just in time for Easter at about $35 a bunny. I immediately recognized the short video clips in the ads to be AI generated, so I did some basic research. The actual company appears to be in China (of course) and you can buy the exact toy rabbit from the ads at about $1.50 a piece from AliExpress. The ads are super cute and I can see many suckers easily falling for the scammers, who appear to be generally U.S. based, I am guessing they are producing the videos with AI trained on real rabbits. The surprising thing for me is just how ubiquitous the ads are, I've seen them on Youtube, Facebook, and various news media sites--they're everywhere! Which suggests to me that a huge number of people are being fleeced. I am guessing this is just the beginning of the end, soon pretty much any ad you see will be completely suspect, AI is taking over the internet... Here is the homepage of the Fanyil company, all sorts of red flags to be found:
Rabbit Toys to Scam You
 
Rabbits, like other animals, can exhibit a variety of responses to perceived criticism or threats, including fleeing, freezing, or displaying aggressive behavior, depending on the situation and their individual temperament.
 
I had to laugh at this bit...
1742703498567.png
Cause all the rabbits around here have 'electric jump' and glowing ears....
I rarely use facebook, but I have noticed that every ad I see for electronics, you can buy the exact same thing from Aliexpress for less than a tenth of the price...

I saw just the other day on FB, a 'super long range TV antenna'- that was being sold for $70 (down from $130)- you can buy them on Aliexpress for under $3...
Thats one hell of a markup (ripoff)
(they also claimed it had a range of 'hundreds of miles'- in reality, it would be lucky to pick up anything more than 10km away)
 
Asking too many questions can make you seem like a smart alec, but not asking enough can also be a problem . Here's what to consider:

Why it happens: Asking many questions may be caused by anxiety or not realizing that the number of questions is making someone uncomfortable


The person might feel like they have a closer relationship with you than you do with them .

How to handle it: If you want to maintain the friendship, you can talk to your friend and let them know that they ask too many personal questions, to the point that you often feel uncomfortable when you're together . If they can’t change, you may have to see them less or be more assertive about setting boundaries regarding what you're willing to discuss .

Values questions: With values questions, you could always ask another "Why?" question . According to philosopher Richard Rorty, values questions eventually lead to someone saying "Just shut up. Stop asking me why" .

Curiosity: In debates and arguments, people attack each other over how much curiosity they demonstrate . People may say, "Aren't you at all curious? You're going to settle for that lame answer?" Or, "Oh, get over it. Stop asking so many questions!" .
 
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Saw the ads weeks ago, and the depicted motion had to be fake. (Which made all the other claimed features such as "soft and cuddly" dubious.)

In a way, that's nothing new. I remember a doll-scaled motorized walking toy horse marketed for girls when I was a kid. The motion shown in the TV ads was real, but there was no live audio of kids playing with the toy in the ad, just voice-over and music. I realized that's because the horse must make the same loud annoying sounds as all other motorized mechanical toys. "Hey Stacey let's ride our ponies to the castle!" "Okay Julie, here we go!" Gzzz-GZZZZ-Thump! Gzzz-GZZZZ-Thump! Gzzz-GZZZZ-Thump! Kinda kills the fantasy.

I do appreciate the bunnies' "no chaos" feature though. I've seen enough horror anthology TV episodes to know what happens when the toy includes chaos.
 
I didn't look at or think about it too closely, but yes, the device did look far too realistic to be a device. I mean, the muscles rippling under the skin? Very hard to do in a toy.
 
stanfr said:
I recently started selling plushies at a retail shop that I own, and apparently as a result of my wholesale purchases, I am now inundated with ubiquitous ads on social media sites and the internet in general for the fabulously realistic "Bunnypal" by Fanyil. The ads consist of incredibly realistic moving toy rabbits, which you can order just in time for Easter at about $35 a bunny. I immediately recognized the short video clips in the ads to be AI generated, so I did some basic research. The actual company appears to be in China (of course) and you can buy the exact toy rabbit from the ads at about $1.50 a piece from AliExpress. The ads are super cute and I can see many suckers easily falling for the scammers, who appear to be generally U.S. based, I am guessing they are producing the videos with AI trained on real rabbits. The surprising thing for me is just how ubiquitous the ads are, I've seen them on Youtube, Facebook, and various news media sites--they're everywhere! Which suggests to me that a huge number of people are being fleeced. I am guessing this is just the beginning of the end, soon pretty much any ad you see will be completely suspect, AI is taking over the internet... Here is the homepage of the Fanyil company, all sorts of red flags to be found:
Rabbit Toys to Scam You
Click to expand...
Yeah I started seeing these a while ago, as you say they are appearing everywhere.

There's no special generative AI video maker needed for this, any of the current lot could produce such a clip with no real effort, here's one I just did with local processing - it took about 4 minutes to render it and all I put in was "a yellow toy bunny rabbit in a living room hopping towards the camera" - it did take me a minute or two extra as I realised couldn't easily insert the actual video file so I cropped it and converted it into a GIF instead.
bunny 1.gif

The generative AI's producing videos are getting much, much better and in short clips it's often not possible to work out if it is a video of something real or not. Lots of the cheapo click-bait style adverts for what are nothing more than scams are using generative AI images and videos.
 
I'm suspicious. They'll at least need to provide evidence of them stealing whole bags of bunny treats from a closed tin before running behind the TV where they know you can't get them, chewing through six consecutive "protected" internet cables or ejaculating on my ex-wife.
 
I'm wondering, too. So many weird ads, obvious hoaxes, obviously low-effort scams, etc. I know there are people at (for example YouTube) who must be picking which ads are shown and which are blocked, so is there just no gatekeeping anymore? Do they just not care?
 
Are we sure the AliExpress rabbits are the same, and not a much cheaper knock off? I mean, I wouldn't put it past some enterprising scammer to sell the $3 bunny for $35 with some slick marketing, but I equally wouldn't put it past some other enterprising scammer to make some utterly junk version of a higher quality toy that looks similar and sell it for less?
 
Thermal said:
Are we sure the AliExpress rabbits are the same, and not a much cheaper knock off? I mean, I wouldn't put it past some enterprising scammer to sell the $3 bunny for $35 with some slick marketing, but I equally wouldn't put it past some other enterprising scammer to make some utterly junk version of a higher quality toy that looks similar and sell it for less?
Click to expand...
Based on the comments in negative reviews of the pricier version, I believe they are all the same cheap thingie.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
I'm wondering, too. So many weird ads, obvious hoaxes, obviously low-effort scams, etc. I know there are people at (for example YouTube) who must be picking which ads are shown and which are blocked, so is there just no gatekeeping anymore? Do they just not care?
Click to expand...
They definitely don't care. I've been screaming at FB for months now about their utter disregard of the 100s if not thousands of fake profile sites that are spreading misinformation via AI generated images and video, to the sound of crickets. And even as people start catching on and comment on these pages to expose their scams, the page owners don't care, so long as a certain percentage of the gullible public still falls for it, and the negative remarks simply boost their overall stats. I'll comment on one of these pages and tell them they will burn in hell, and next thing you know I get a notification "Will you accept this "Top Fan" honor from the (scammers)?" All they care about is boosting views and interactions (no such thing as negative publicity) because that enables FB and other social media agencies to charge more $ for advertising. The only winners are the Oligarchs--the honest advertisers certainly don't win cause they are just paying more to reach a (largely) unresponsive audience. And of course the scammers win in the same way, like the old Nigerian Bank scam their rate of success in scamming will go down as word gets out of their scam, but there are always a few gullible people out there to prey on.
 
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stanfr said:
They definitely don't care. I've been screaming at FB for months now about their utter disregard of the 100s if not thousands of fake profile sites that are spreading misinformation via AI generated images and video, to the sound of crickets. And even as people start catching on and comment on these pages to expose their scams, the page owners don't care, so long as a certain percentage of the gullible public still falls for it, and the negative remarks simply boost their overall stats. I'll comment on one of these pages and tell them they will burn in hell, and next thing you know I get a notification "Will you accept this "Top Fan" honor from the (scammers)?" All they care about is boosting views and interactions (no such thing as negative publicity) because that enables FB and other social media agencies to charge more $ for advertising. The only winners are the Oligarchs--the honest advertisers certainly don't win cause they are just paying more to reach a (largely) unresponsive audience. And of course the scammers win in the same way, like the old Nigerian Bank scam their rate of success in scamming will go down as word gets out of their scam, but there are always a few gullible people out there to prey on.
Click to expand...
One faint hope I have for a restoration (?) of sanity is that people in general will become distrustful of the "news" they get from FB and other "social" media. I guess the race to the bottom as it fills with such obvious junk may help. 30% of U.S. adults say they regularly get news from Facebook per:
www.pewresearch.org

How Americans Get News on TikTok, X, Facebook and Instagram

X is still more of a news destination than these other platforms, but the vast majority of users on all four see news-related content.
www.pewresearch.org www.pewresearch.org
 
I find TwiX to be a quicker source of BREAKING NEWS than almost anything else. Mostly just people bitching about politician's doings, comments, or policy changes, though.
 
Darat said:
Yeah I started seeing these a while ago, as you say they are appearing everywhere.

There's no special generative AI video maker needed for this, any of the current lot could produce such a clip with no real effort, here's one I just did with local processing - it took about 4 minutes to render it and all I put in was "a yellow toy bunny rabbit in a living room hopping towards the camera" - it did take me a minute or two extra as I realised couldn't easily insert the actual video file so I cropped it and converted it into a GIF instead.
View attachment 59616

The generative AI's producing videos are getting much, much better and in short clips it's often not possible to work out if it is a video of something real or not. Lots of the cheapo click-bait style adverts for what are nothing more than scams are using generative AI images and videos.
Click to expand...
That's impressive until you notice the couch doesn't have enough thumbs.
 
There's a cute ad about this is the best AI pet! A cute puppy is moving around realistically, like the bunny.

It does many different super cute things.

Eventually it's too much, like rearing up on its hind legs to grab at your fingers, and you realize it's a real puppy, and an ad for you to go get a rescue puppy, you stupid ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊.


Edited by Agatha: 
Edited for rule 10.
 
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Safe-Keeper said:
I'm wondering, too. So many weird ads, obvious hoaxes, obviously low-effort scams, etc. I know there are people at (for example YouTube) who must be picking which ads are shown and which are blocked, so is there just no gatekeeping anymore? Do they just not care?
Click to expand...
Beating a drum I'm well-known for, this is yet another reason I aggressively block ads on the web. I get enough crap on the sites I'm interested in visiting without adding a whole other landfill's worth to the pile.
 
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