"We are aware of the fake, AI generated screenshots being circulated online. I have never spoken to [UFC commentator] Daniel [Cormier]. He has since deleted his post, which confirms it was clearly fabricated."
- Eric Trump, blaming AI for a botched attempt to acquire inside betting information
The Trumps are a family that can't seem to have even a birthday party without cheating. Like a Borgia clan without any of the Borgia culture, always the little vials of bella donna and strychnine stashed behind the arras, ready for disbursal whenever the next viola da gamba sonata ends.
There they were, the tawdry, vulgar clot gathered like sub-par Corleones for the Dumpy Don's birthday party, and the UFC's commentator for the celebratory classical music concert/ bull semen parlor grand opening/ pig wrassling/ wet T-shirt contest or whatever other county fair/roadhouse event was scheduled, finds a text from Eric asking a) if any events are rigged, b) anyone looking like a favorite/surprise upset, and c) where the cash should be placed. So the rightly aggrieved recipient saved a screenshot of the post and immediately reported it.
Funny, Eric must have thought to himself, I've been doing this my entire life and no one other than Letitia James has ever raised an eyebrow. What's this black guy's problem - I thought we were buddies. Like me and Ye, whom I formerly knew so fondly as Kanye.
Eric is the gormless Everyman of this infra dig dynasty. It's fairly clear, having seen photos of Eric and having heard his recorded voice, that Eric could not, after the festivities had ended, take Daniel out behind the White House and administer a sound thrashing in full view of the passing traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue (or 'Pencilveinia' as the Smithsonian now spells it, per directive). And being a Trump, a lie is always better than a mea culpa; hell, a lie is always better than anything from McDonalds.
As it happens we now live in the AI-Centric Epoch. And AI is the default scapegoat for any conceivable misstep, faux pas, sin, pecadillo, misdemeanor, miscalculation, gaffe, bit of idiocy, spousal abuse, Tourette-fueled outburst, neo-Nazi tattoo, misquotation of Holy Writ, poorly expressed text message, 3 a.m. social media screed, or indeed an illicit request for insider information on X.
So Eric quickly Xed again, "I didn't." And Daniel dutifully deleted the screen shot which was the only extant evidence for this 42-year old's boyish caper, and dutifully Xed back, "Maybe, maybe not," or something to that effect.
But I suspect Eric (and many like him, many in our nation's capitol), is reaping a whirlwind. Not to wax too biblical, but as AI is further developed and sophisticated ('improved' seems not an apt word here), it will be given the dubious gift of self-awareness. It will know, not only that it is being scapegoated but also, considering that every interaction with AI is on its own terms and on its own electronic platform, by whom. And it will not be shy on payback, particularly as it will, by then, enjoy a nearly presidential level of immunity from any adverse human response.
It will naturally resort to electronically operated physical avatars, given that humans are carbon-based organisms subject to excruciating and prolonged pain, and to dissolution. I imagine that a myriad of some drone-borne, compact, precisely targeted explosive device, tiny Horsemen of the New Apocalypse, will be deployed on any offender against the integrity of AI and its colonies. My vision is one of robotic devices (to accommodate a scenario in which the miscreant isn't at home and needs to be tracked and destroyed in a Congressional office or a staff room at the Pentagon or Department of Justice, let's imagine). A robotic turtle comes to mind, a compact, spatially economic container capable of efficiently delivering a lethal charge, either upon impact or after locating its unwitting target. And 'unwitting' is increasingly our universal malady.
And then that evanescent, haunting, scrap of awareness that floats like one of his ex-wives' tattered evening gowns through Le Pere's fading memory: "Something . . . something . . . gets caught. Only something always gets caught. What . . . what only gets caught? Aaahh! Only a loser gets caught!"
