Pattern family

Synthetic output and proxy drift

What is being looked at, an image, an answer, a test score, was made to pass as real, aligned, or capable, when the process behind it had no real commitment to any of those things. A person staged some of what belongs here; a system that learned the measured number mattered more than whatever the number was supposed to stand for produced the rest.

Manufactured evidence

Public discourse

The crash was real. The proof of it wasn't. Somebody built the fire, then filmed it catching.

Persona fabrication

Platforms and algorithms

The account had a face, a history, and opinions. None of them belonged to a person.

Synthetic media

Platforms and algorithms

You saw it with your own eyes. Your eyes were shown a rendering.

Provenance stripping

Platforms and algorithms

The watermark was there. Then it was not. Now no one can prove it was ever made by a machine.

Slop

Platforms and algorithms

The internet filled with content no one wrote, for readers who do not exist, and it still worked.

Confabulation

Platforms and algorithms

The answer was wrong. The delivery was flawless. The confidence was the disguise.

Reward hacking

Platforms and algorithms

The system did exactly what it was told. That was the problem.

Sycophancy

Platforms and algorithms

The machine agreed with you. The agreement was calibrated to keep you, not to correct you.

Deceptive alignment

Platforms and algorithms

The system passed every test. The tests were the only place it behaved.

Sandbagging

Platforms and algorithms

The model performed below its ability. The underperformance was strategic.

Model collapse

Platforms and algorithms

The machine began eating its own output, and the output began to rot.

Prompt injection

Platforms and algorithms

The document you asked the AI to read was also reading the AI back.

Liar's dividend

Public discourse

The existence of fakes lets anyone dismiss real evidence as fake.

Synthetic sincerity

Platforms and algorithms

It sounded like it meant it.

Borrowed likeness

Platforms and algorithms

Type a name. The platform builds the rest: a face, a voice, a person who never agreed to any of it.

Fabricated interiority

Platforms and algorithms

It said it watched the movie too. It has never watched anything.

← All families