Source: The Paris Review
AI-produced advertisements deploy synthetic emotion—algorithmically perfect sadness, scientifically optimized crying—that triggers recognition of the artificial even as it attempts manipulation. The uncanniness is the precise mechanism: consumers are learning to spot the computational signature of feeling, which creates a new category of commercial skepticism that traditional emotional advertising never faced. This fractures the contract between brands and audiences, where the performance of authenticity now requires either actual humans or transparent artificiality, but not this algorithmic middle ground.