Brock Ciarlelli (2:41)

Yeah.

Eden Scher (2:42)

The pity pound, as I call it.

Brock Ciarlelli (2:44)

Pity pound. It's. Oh, it's what? It's a weird world we live in, isn't it, AIs? Yeah, I, I for one, do not fear our Skynet overlords. I welcome them. All right. I'm joking. I am absolutely terrified of them.

Eden Scher (2:57)

I will be part of your world. It's fine.

Brock Ciarlelli (3:00)

It's like I take, you know, like when you see like the invader, the body snatchers, I just imagine like AI pointing and screaming and just the dial up tone just hitting. So this is an Article that was on CBS News in May. AI generated accounts impersonating people with down syndrome are spreading across social media. According to an analysis by CBS News, many of these artificial intelligence backed profiles are gaining followers faster than real disability advocates and they're making money from it.

Eden Scher (3:33)

Tell me about it.

Brock Ciarlelli (3:34)

These fake accounts use feel good messages, dance to trending songs and thank their followers for supporting their journey. One video is captioned, be proud of yourself and your differences. CBS News confirmed identifying more than 30 accounts impersonating people with down syndrome and disabilities across Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Some use deep fakes or AI face swaps. Others mimic real disability advocates language and repackage it to pass as authentic. Only a few accounts disclosed the use of AI.

Eden Scher (4:07)

Do you know, I take, I, this is gross. I also take this personally as an advocate with a reasonably large following that it's, it's, it's very possible that they're using my words that they're stealing my articles. I mean I've got five years of articles, some of which have been seen by millions of people. I think the most I had was like 20 million people read one of my articles.

Brock Ciarlelli (4:34)

Small country. Yeah, country.

Eden Scher (4:37)

And it's, it kind of like every article that I write, every piece of writing is personal and, and sometimes it takes hours for me to, to get it right. And, and because the Internet loves to judge. Oh does it does love to judge. And I would, I would spend hours making sure that I got it right and putting my feelings and my experiences and like, like we do on this podcast. And, and I can imagine that like I could like steal things that we say on this podcast because they can make a fake podcasts as well.

Brock Ciarlelli (5:17)

Yeah. And there is a bit of a thing going around about that at the moment.

Eden Scher (5:21)

So it's stealing our advocacy and it's, it's not. I don't care about the money. I never have done. And the fact that they're doing it for money and getting money for it makes me even sicker because that's not what advocacy should be about. And by the way this, this happens with real advocates as well who have actual disabilities. They will be advocates to, to get money which. Yeah, you know, I mean if, if that is the way you make money, I'm not going to say it's a bad thing. It's, it's just like I understand the.

Brock Ciarlelli (6:05)

Ethical sort of back and forth with that.

Eden Scher (6:07)

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's not, it's not that that, I mean everybody has a right to earn money and it, it just depends on how you're earning it. Like if you're doing a job, you're, you're doing talks or you're doing mentoring or, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're working for it. I get it. But if, if you're sitting around and I've seen this, and the thing is, I've actually mostly seen it from parents with, with disabled children where they will start a GoFundMe with their kid of like, oh, little Thomas, he has autism. And he just, and this is a real one. I've changed the name. This is a real one. He just, he wants to create a table coffee table book with some of his pictures and you know, could, could you help him? And I've gone, oh, that's, that's really sweet. Yeah, I've looked at it. It's up to like a hundred thousand pounds.

Brock Ciarlelli (7:07)

Holy.

Eden Scher (7:08)

And you're like, if that's me, wow. And I had done that for a genuine reason. Once it hit the goal of like a couple of grand, I would have stopped it. I would have canceled it because I'd like. Okay, thank you so much. That's so generous. Now Thomas can, can get the thing that he wanted because there's nothing wrong with asking for help. Like, that's, that is, people give for charity. That's what that is. But there is something wrong with when you have got that and then you, then you get greedy. Yeah. Okay, so that I figured it out. It's not, it's not when people, you know, will make a living. It's when people get greedy. Like I will charge a certain. It's like 150 for a talk. There are people that will charge 3,000. Really? I didn't even feel like I thought £3,000 for a talk.

Brock Ciarlelli (8:03)

Inflation.

Eden Scher (8:04)

Okay, so 10 grand. I now charge 5 grand for a talk. And I'm cheap. I just like, it's, it just is. Yeah, to me it's, it's. I mean, greed of any kind of is gross to me, but especially when you're using your disability to make money and then you get greedy with that. I guess that, that's my issue. But that aside, completely and utterly faking a disability, using AI to create either a face change and, or just creating like a fake picture of a human that doesn't exist or using AI to write articles from the perspective of a disabled person. That is fucked up.

Brock Ciarlelli (8:57)

I mean, this is continuing this article from CBS. Many of the imposter accounts identified by CBS posted videos on TikTok and Instagram using flirty or emotional captions to grab attention. So you can imagine how people are making their money and it's through OnlyFans.

Eden Scher (9:14)

Yeah, I saw that as well, which.

Brock Ciarlelli (9:15)

Is kind of, kind of crazy. And I, as somebody who works in media, I understand social media. I am, you know, not afraid to say, you know, go get your bag. If you're somebody who's got a channel where like I follow a guy on Tick Tock who's an ice cream man and he sells ice creams and he just has like, you know, the Ray Ban sort of what the Facebook glasses. And he just does povs of him making ice creams and selling them. And he makes an unbelievable amount of money through TikTok. This is the sort of the modern world that we're moving into. But what is kind of totally messing with my head is that it's that thing. It's like the GoFundMe thing. It's like, oh, Thomas wants a book and he also needs a BMW and a trip to Disneyland.

Eden Scher (9:59)

It's like, oh, why Thomas A flipping house for what they ended up getting.

Brock Ciarlelli (10:03)

Yeah, this is getting complex. And like, sympathy is a currency online. It is. And it amazes me how you have neurodivergent advocates, disability advocates, you know, from, from many different walks of life are online to try and raise awareness, to advocate, to sort of create a community space. And I'm not surprised, but I am surprised that somebody has gone. That's an angle that I can, can monetize. It's not surprised me, but it has surprised me because the amount of discourse that you read from people online about disabled people, not many people talk about it like it's a desirable thing to be, you know, in the comments. The way that people talk about us, not to us, about us in certain circum. Certain circles of the Internet is horrific. It's horrific.

Eden Scher (10:59)

I've been called all sorts of names under the sun, dude.

Brock Ciarlelli (11:02)

It's awful. Like, the eugenic sort of language that some people use on the Internet is just awful to read.

Eden Scher (11:07)

Oh, someone told me that I, I should never have had kids because I'm damaging the world by giving like, putting autism into the world. Like, people have said that to me.

Brock Ciarlelli (11:18)

So how the are people looking at this and going, oh, I can, I can turn this into a bit of change this. It just, it just baffles me.

Eden Scher (11:26)

Yeah, because. Because the thing is, they're obviously trolls. They're obviously horrible people that will say horrible things. But most of My interactions with, with the people on Facebook. You know when you go on to like, Google review or.

Brock Ciarlelli (11:41)

Yeah, trust pilot things.

Eden Scher (11:42)

Yeah, trust pilot things like that. If you go to look for airlines, not many airlines will have above one or two stars.

Brock Ciarlelli (11:53)

No.

Eden Scher (11:53)

And the reason is that is if you pay for your ticket and you've had a desirable journey and everything was fine, you get to the other end and you go, well, I paid for that.

Brock Ciarlelli (12:03)

That's what I paid for it to be.

Eden Scher (12:04)

That I expected to. It's. It's not a Airbnb. Why would you leave a review for that?

Brock Ciarlelli (12:10)

Had a great time.

Eden Scher (12:11)

Yeah, I had a great time on the flight is exactly what I wanted and exactly what I paid for.

Brock Ciarlelli (12:15)

Movies were exactly what I wanted. Yeah.

Eden Scher (12:17)

Yeah. If you had a good time in an airport, you probably might say that to the cabin crew. It's like, thank you so much. I had a wonderful time. But you're not going to get, if you're lucky, ye. If you're not pissed, but you're not going to. You're not going to go out of your way to write it down. Normally people would, but if you have had a really shitty time, the first thing you want to do is like, I'm going to tell them all about it. I'm going to write this review. I'm going to tell them one. If I could give zero stars, if I could give zero stars, I'd give zero stars. And that's that. That's what happens. So when, when it comes to comments on, on my. They say risque, risque posts. Like, I put like a pro vaccine post and all the anti vaxxers come out the woodwork and. Or I put an anti Trump post and all the maga squeeze their way back onto my page somehow. And the thing is, it's. It's like there's. There'll be like 20 or 30 negative comments, but when I actually look at the likes, there'll be like 1500 positive likes or hearts or a care emoji, and there'll be 30, like, frowny faces or laughy faces where someone's like, thinks I'm an idiot or something. But if I just looked at the comments, it looks like there's an overwhelming amount of people that are having a gut me and disagree with me. But in reality, if you look at the likes to dislike ratio, it's 1500 to 30. And because when people are enraged by something, they're going to write a comment of. You don't know anything about vaccines. I've studied them for at least three weeks. And I found that, you know, they're full of chewing gum.

Brock Ciarlelli (14:09)

I've done at least two weeks more research than you.

Eden Scher (14:11)

Yeah, all vaccines have bits of wood in. Vaccines contain the DNA of hamsters. They've come up with some very specific, it always is some nonsense and. Or there'll be a story of, oh, yeah, my son got autism because, you know, I took him and he had the vaccine, he came back and he couldn't talk the next day. And it's like, I mean, I don't, I don't know how to deal with that. Like, that's, I, that is your thing. That's not my thing. That is, I have to just take your word for it. But most of them, I just ignore it. Yeah, but, but the point I'm making is that most people, most people are kind, are sympathetic, are willing to want to help. It doesn't feel like that a lot of the time because comments are generally negative. But if I look at the reactions, the heart emojis, the care emojis, the thumbs up, that, that is always. The ratio is hugely different. Like I said, 1500-30, hugely different. So I think like, if, if I started saying, I'll give some cash, give some money, like, it, it just, it just depends on, like, all I'm asking.

Brock Ciarlelli (15:33)

For is a pound. If all of you give me a pound.

Eden Scher (15:36)

But the thing is, there's nothing wrong with that to a certain extent, because the fact is advocacy is it's not a paid gig, so there's a lot of people putting a lot of effort into it. So what I do is I sell my photography. I say, if you want to support me, if you want to support my page, if you don't give me money, buy one of my pictures that I, that's why I make them. 10 pound. My photography could be sold for hundreds, if not thousands of pounds. My images, right?

Brock Ciarlelli (16:07)

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Eden Scher (16:08)

But I will charge tenor, I will charge a tenner because that is me saying, now anyone can afford it, you know, if they want it, that anyone can afford it. And it also supports me. And I, and I exclusively spend that money on going and taking more pictures. So then I can then show once again the beauty of the world, the beauty of being hyper focused, the beauty of neurodivergence. I can share my vision of the world through photography and make people feel good and that, that's. I make me feel good, I make others feel good. And if you want to support that, then, then you can go to my pick fair and you can buy a picture for, for, for a tenor and that's it. And you know, and there's nothing wrong with people asking for support in doing what they're doing because a lot of disabled people can't work and do struggle and that might be the only way they can make money. So they might be selling a book, but if you, if you've got a product and you're generally selling something, but if you just like, oh gives, it gives a thousand pound where.

Brock Ciarlelli (17:11)

Because I'm sexy.

Eden Scher (17:12)

Yeah, the, the, yeah, the only fans I, I have, I don't have a problem with only fans at all.

Brock Ciarlelli (17:19)

It's.

Eden Scher (17:19)

Yeah, I, I don't have an issue with it.

Brock Ciarlelli (17:21)

Yeah.

Eden Scher (17:21)

But like if, if there was someone with down syndrome who was on Only Fans and that's their choice and, and, and, and they have complete autonomy over that and they're, they're not being used and, and it's, it's completely their choice or power to you. Like you crack on. If you can make money from, from that, you crack on, good luck to you. But there's something really up about someone who's doesn't have down syndrome. Pretending they have down syndrome and then doing only Fans. That's, that is so wrong.

Brock Ciarlelli (17:58)

I just don't know like how, when does, when does your conscience kick in?

Eden Scher (18:02)

Oh dude, like it's like the Nigerian prince scam or.

Brock Ciarlelli (18:06)

Oh God, you know.

Eden Scher (18:08)

Yeah, they, they, they had it over Covid as well. So many people being scammed. These people don't have conscience.

Brock Ciarlelli (18:15)

Yeah. I saw a scamming video on Tick Tock and this woman was literally on the phone with a scammer. She knew it, she was filming and she faked a car accident. Like played sound effects and everything. She's going, ah, please help me, I need help. And the guy was like, yeah, yeah, I'll send help, but I just need the credit card number. Wow, that's crazy. But going on to the sort of, just the AI element of it, just before we wrap up here, somebody is quoted in the, the article. It's not right to steal our stories just to get attention online. Those are our stories. I work so hard to advocate and share my journ online and I can't believe people would try to take that away from me. It's a disturbing trend. I've seen my friends faces used in AI posts more than once.

Eden Scher (19:01)

Oh, that's so bad.

Brock Ciarlelli (19:03)

It's scary.

Eden Scher (19:03)

I wonder how many people steal my photography as well. Because yeah, I, I, obviously I, some of them, I, I've Got a signature. And sometimes I forget because it's like.

Brock Ciarlelli (19:13)

A watermark, isn't it?

Eden Scher (19:14)

No, it's just my signature in the bottom hand corner. I just add my signature on Photoshop, but I can remove it just as easily.

Brock Ciarlelli (19:23)

I work on Canva. Yeah.

Eden Scher (19:25)

The amount of people that said, oh yeah, you should do this, and I'm just like, you know that that's, that's not going to stop people stealing my stuff. And also it's in the corner so maybe they could just crop it out. I mean, I've just given people just a little bit. This is what you do. But the fact is is they can't sell it because the quality of what it is on, on Facebook or on Instagram is so diluted, you know, it, that the files have been so compressed that if you zoom in on it on a big screen, it's just pixels. It just looks so naff. It just looks good because it's on a phone or even when I, even when I look on Facebook, at my own pictures on Facebook, on my tablet and I've got this huge sort of 14 inch tablet that you can see how, how degraded it is. But it doesn't mean that people can't take them and then post them and then just pretend. I mean, I've had accounts pretend to be me. They literally have pretended to be me. And it's really, really messed up thing. One time I'd put something really positive about like body positivity and accepting myself and someone put, oh, that's fresh coming from you, considering what you said last week. And I was like, what, what did I say last week? And the woman, woman was like, yeah, you know what you said. I was like, I mean, I, I, I, I don't. So could you, could you explain it to me?

Brock Ciarlelli (20:57)

Enlighten.

Eden Scher (20:57)

And she's like, oh, you said that it was really horrible. It was like, oh, like fat autistic kids are just lazy. Something really horrible like that. Which I would never say because I completely and utterly understand about, about weight issues. And people follow you, they know that. Exactly. But what it was is someone basically had copied my account, had one follower, right? So it's like if you see something written by apparently me and you think that that's a bit weird that he said that, press on it. And if it hasn't got 105,000 followers, that's not me. Pretty easy to tell the real one. So I was like, that wasn't me. So I had to look at that comment, which she said. And then I found it and then I went there and I reported them and blocked them. But that doesn't stop them from like 10, 20, 30 more opening up, pretending to be me, posting my pictures, pretending to get, you know, attention and stuff.

Brock Ciarlelli (22:07)

Yeah, I had an email from the provider that we used to publish the podcast and, and create the episodes and put it out there. And it was a survey discussing AI podcasts. Would you be comfortable putting out a podcast that uses AI voice rather than your own? Would you be comfortable using AI sound design? Would you be comfortable putting out a show that is entirely AI? Would you be comfortable putting out an entirely AI show and not letting the audience know that it's an AI podcast? Like these are the sorts of questions that were in this survey. And editing software that I use has a transcript setting that goes create a transcript and we will try and find an a maker AI replicant of your voice. That freaks me out. I'm never going to use that. It freaks me out. But the fact that these things are now happening where you're going online and you're seeing disability advocates and now people are going to start questioning whether they're even disabled at all. Isn't that half the battle that we're already fighting? And to add on top of that as well, you're now listening to podcasts and things like that where you're going to listen to information that's being put out there and you don't even know if the people that you're listening to once a week are even real.

Eden Scher (23:27)

It's, it's incredibly detrimental in general when, when people fake anything. The, the people who aren't faking will inevitably get caught up in the distrust of the, the people who are faking it. And, and I've, I've had this with my photography where I've seen a huge drop off of, of engagement with my, with my photography because my photography, because of the way that I, that I edit my, my photos, I, it gives it a very fantasy orientated feel to it. It's, I've always done it. I've always like softened them and you know, and made them more colorful. And it's part of my process. You know, I'm not just a photographer, I'm an artist as well. So I will always have my picture. I don't fake a picture. It's my picture. But then I might hide. It's just, it's called post processing. Every single photographer as semi professional, professional will do post processing. But it's also part of my therapy is like, it's art for me, it's very calming.

Brock Ciarlelli (24:35)

It's creative. Yeah.

Eden Scher (24:36)

But it does give this very unreal feel to a lot of my pictures. And somebody might go, oh, that's just AI and I, and, and I, I wouldn't blame them because someone actually did say it was, it was a picture I had of, of an owl. And it just looked, it looks so unreal. Not because of the edit, just because I'm photographed, just because my camera is so flipping good, it's so crisp that the photo doesn't look real. And someone said, they didn't say it is, they said, is it AI? And it was really harsh because people started Facebook. My, my fans were like, oh, Jordan doesn't do AI. And I was like, well, well, calm down everyone. They just asked question, they just asked the question. And my answer was no. This was a real owl. It's at the local sanctuary. This is the thing. But I actually took it as a compliment because they said it looks so good. It doesn't look real. So I took that as a compliment. But I do wonder how many of my pictures like people are looking at but they're not liking or commenting or engaging with because they're like, oh, that's just AI. And I don't, I don't blame them. I blame the people who are using AI to make pictures.

Brock Ciarlelli (25:51)

It's like the fake news thing, isn't it? It's just, oh, it's fake news. Oh, it's AI. Like, it will get to the point now where people will have footage of them doing something that they shouldn't be doing and they'll go, it's AI. You can't prove that it's AI. And like, you know, somebody will say something on a podcast like this and then, you know, it goes wrong or they say the wrong thing or whatever and they'll just go, I say, I can't trust that I said that. I didn't even do the interview. It's AI.

Eden Scher (26:17)

But AI can be good. Because, I mean, just, just from what you were saying about, about the podcast thing about like, let's, let's say somebody is, is non speaking, but they'd like to do a podcast. They could use AI to put their words so they could actually have a voice. They could make their own podcast using AI. And the thing is that's not fake. That's a real non speaking individual who is, who is putting their words. And their words are coming to life because of AI. So I think that's beautiful. It's when it's misused and it's when it's nefarious and when. It's when people hide it. That's the problem.

Brock Ciarlelli (27:05)

Yeah. Because I can imagine very soon that you'll get people that are deaf. That sign, being able to have a podcast. Yeah, that is something that is. That could. That can happen and I think will happen.

Eden Scher (27:18)

Yeah. Because non speaking isn't just autistic people. Non speaking is many, many different disabled people.

Brock Ciarlelli (27:24)

You know, imagine if we spoke Spanish and somebody wanted to listen to our podcast in English. It will get to the point where AI will be able to transl. Translate a podcast for you. It will. It's getting there. It probably already is there. But yeah, there are a lot of.

Eden Scher (27:40)

It's just misusing technology.

Brock Ciarlelli (27:42)

Misusing. It's using it. You know, it's. With great power comes great responsibility, and people aren't using it responsibly. If anything, they're using it maliciously. I was. Honestly, dude, when you sent me this story, I was so shocked. I'm shocked, but I'm not shocked, you know? Yeah.

Eden Scher (28:00)

When I first. I first watched it on. On a YouTube video and I was like, really? Because. Because the times I've seen this before when I've seen, like, what I call them poverty posts. So you'll see an African child and they've built a Ferrari of Coke bottles. And it's so obviously fake. It's so obviously fake. Or you'll get the ones where you'll have like a little girl with no hands. And it said, oh, I built this sandcastle with my feet, and it looks like Buckingham Palace. And it's like, I did this with my feet. And I'm like, that's. That's an AI image. That's. That's fake. But the amount of people that will comment below. Oh, God bless. Oh, God, amazing. Look. Look what you did. Oh, you're so amaz. I'm like, who. Who's. That's not a real person. That's like watching Rick and Morty and saying, oh, that old man. And it's not very nice to his grandchild. Well, that's a cartoon. And so is the image you're looking at with this girl with no hands. That's a cartoon. That's an AI image. And it's crazy. And it is mostly elderly people who cannot tell the difference. And it's not even good. And it's getting better and better and better.

Brock Ciarlelli (29:30)

The leap is in the past few years is frightening. Like, frightening how much it's improved. Like, there is. There was one video that was trending recently of rabbits on a trampoline. That was AI and it was on the news.

Eden Scher (29:44)

Yeah.

Brock Ciarlelli (29:44)

Local ladies captured rabbits bouncing on her trampoline. Isn't that as well?

Eden Scher (29:49)

And then one of the rabbits literally just disappears.

Narrator/Advertiser (29:52)

Just.

Brock Ciarlelli (29:52)

Yeah, himself into existence.

Eden Scher (29:54)

Just like he goes into a vortex. And you're just like, does no one. Does no one see that? It's. It's incredible. But then, you know, some people voted for Trump, so there's. There's a lot of dumbasses out there.

Brock Ciarlelli (30:06)

And what a nice way to end the show. Yes, yes. Well, if you. Yeah, yeah. I'm interested to see what people's opinions of this story is. I'm interested to hear what you think about AI Are you excited for our new metallic Skynet overlords, or are you afraid of the Matrix? Let us know. So this has been this week's Hot Topic. We will be back on Thursday with another episode. Both of us will be here. You're all welcome.

Eden Scher (30:33)

I'm back, baby.

Brock Ciarlelli (30:36)

So, yes, please take care of yourself. Be safe and watch out for AI Esky. Bye, everybody.

Eden Scher (30:41)

Nightly. Bye.

Brock Ciarlelli (30:46)

Thanks for tuning in to the Neurodivergent Experience. We hope today's episode sparked something for you. Whether it's a new idea, a bit of validation, or just a moment of connection, remember, new episodes are every week, so be sure to join us for the next one for more conversations and insights into the Neurodivergent Experience. If you've enjoyed this podcast, help us grow. You can do that by rating and reviewing this show. Your support makes a huge difference in helping us reach more people who could benefit from these conversations. You can connect with us on social media, find us on Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok. Just search for the neurodivergent Experience. Thank you again for listening. And until next time, take care of yourself. You're not alone in this journey.

Narrator/Advertiser (31:44)

From the Cascades to PDX to your kitchen. We recycle like we live here. That's why governments, brands and recycling companies are all joining together to bring change, to make recycling better. As in trusting that your recyclables end up in the right places to be made into new things. And having brands help fund the cost of recycling. You can find the Latest updates@recycleon.org Oregon. From Mount Hood to the bin under your desk, together we can do this.

Brock Ciarlelli (32:15)

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

Narrator/Advertiser (32:23)

Hello. Hello, it's Brooke Devard from Naked Beauty. Join me each week for Unfiltered discussion about beauty trends, self care journeys, wellness tips, and the products we absolutely love and cannot get enough of. If you are a skincare obsessive and you spend 20 plus minutes on your skincare routine, this podcast is for you. Or if you're a newbie at the beginning of your skincare journey, you'll love this podcast as well. Because we go so much deeper than beauty, I talk to incredible and inspiring people from across industries about their relationship with beauty. You'll also hear from skincare experts. We break down lots of myths in the beauty industry. If this sounds like your thing, search for naked beauty on your podcast app and listen along. I hope you'll join us.

Brock Ciarlelli (33:06)

ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast. Com.