LOOK MA! HANDS!

Greenwash or "performative greening" is that sneaky practice where a company uses a highly visible but usually ineffectual green measure to show off how environmentally friendly they are.

Now, with the advance of AI and the equally spectacular backlash, a new form of "wash" has arrived. Let's call it "humanwash". Or "Performative Humanizing" if you like a fancier term.  It is content that ostentatiously shows it was made by humans, not computers. Dirty hands, messy shots, bad grammar and lots of "behind the scenes" moments with humans.

Part of this is due to panic. Genuine content creators are terrified of being labeled as "AI Slop"; a phenomenon already so widespread that LinkedIn has actually created a reporting button for it. These makers introduce deliberate mistakes and imperfections, as if to say "we are messy humans! No AI used here!"

Some of this is performative – just for show. Open AI using a human-style ad campaign that uses traditional filmmaking instead of AI-generated visuals? Please.

 And then there is Apple, who spend a huge effort making a painstakingly handcrafted Claymation commercial for its new "Mighty Mac Mini"  M6 computer. The star of the commercial is not the computer itself, but the behind the scenes people getting their hands dirty from colorful clay.

Here is the real irony: both Apple and Open AI are busy integrating (some would say hiding) AI in everyday applications we already use. For consumers, it will be harder than ever to find out if they are using AI or not.

Our role for the future is becoming increasingly clear: we are the actors brought in to legitimize things. Finally something a computer cannot do.

Or can it?