🤣 A story circulating online about an Australian startup that marketed itself as offering “AI girls” to chat with and flirt. In reality, it wasn’t the neural network replying—it was real people in Africa. One man chatted for days with several users at once, posing as “artificial intelligence.” He and other “operators” were paid about $0.05 per message, with strict KPIs and a huge volume of chats. They told their relatives they worked in IT. Stories like this show how real people can be hidden behind “AI” profiles: companies pass off cheap human labor as AI to attract customers and investors.