Well, this is definitely not the complete negation of no thing that under no circumstances might not work out as not unexpectedly wrong.

No, 95 or so cents to establish a trusted bot-in-human-skin would be a bargain, so doesn’t offer any protection.

I am thinking more of a web of trust kind of thing, ideally based on physically meeting people and exchanging keys in the respective first trust stages, and also with an easy option to distrust signing certificates again in the trust chain.

But somebody made a decision to not have you guys killed

Absolutely, not questioning that for a moment!
(Same reason my wife wears similar lights when riding her horse along public roads in winter also it also looks embarrasing).

My military time has been before the incident you mentiioned btw (got drafted in 1995 for 10 months), which makes the incident even more tragic (if they didn’t use the warning lights), as the lights at the rear seem to already have been common practice in some armies at the time…

I fondly remember back in the days doing military exercise marches on public roads:
The last soldier in the column would have to walk with a signalling light attached to the top of his helmet.
I typically walked in some front row (benefit of being tall and placed there for some military-aesthetics reasons), so was at least spared that embarrassment. :-)

we’re all hanging around in Messenger groups with some “Is a real human” vetting process

I think there is a very high likelihood this, or a communication concept based on this, will be the future. Maybe like SSL trusted identity certificates, but not for websites, but for users.

Let’s be realistic.

A “No AI” community is also just material tacked as first grade training data for the next wave of AI bots.

But for now, it at least still is a slightly nicer place to be, so I savour it as long as it lasts…

Or IT equipment.
Or (looking at the current draught during our 6th heat wave this year) water.

A bit much of a hassle to save 7.99€…

Also those useful prepaid credit cards silently seem to have disappeared (at least where I live).
Had to switch to a neobroker that issues credit cards as an alternative some years back.

Never thought I would feel grateful that the bank notifications I got so far in my live have been practically 100% inquiries to go see my bank clerk so he can sell me an underperforming pension scheme…

I wish I will still have as much drip as Christopher Walken when I am at his age…

Well, according to OPs meme, you are all nihilistic doomerists ;-)
No, believe me, my GenX humor is much more stupider!

Naa, we’ll be bitching about AI instead when it’s our turn! ;-)

I guess it is a superposition of both.

Current stage in life setting the general tone/direction (edgy young, sense-searching youth, family-focused middle age, backwards-directed old).

And the time of upbringing determines the content to focus on and the specific type of execution (e.g. when reaching the “old” group some time soon, I will probably bitch about completely other things than current boomers and my memes will be more high-quality due to better skills, but I won’t be doing TikToks…)

While that has some truth to it, I wonder if it is based on some intrinsic properties of the respective generations, or rather just on their current age and stage in life.

E.g. GenX has been the dominant parent generation for the past 20 or so years. Naturally they are doing dad jokes.
While GenZ is young, experimental, and rebelling against the perceived conventions.

But I clearly remember a time when Millenials were as avant-garde as GenZ is now.
And my Millenial wife has been on the track to slowly convert to the slightly stupid but harmless GenX-type of humor for some time now.

So maybe within a few years your meme will be almost the same, with the only difference that the generation captions have each moved one place, with GenAlpha superseding GenZ in the lower right corner…

What makes you think it’s AI?

Mainly the writing on the shirt.
Might be “Seattle” on the top, but gives me more the impression of an image gen model making up its mind halfway while generating “Battle”, adding some none sensical stuff at the bottom with inconsistent font/print style.

Also geometry of the brush seems to be quite of to me.

Other possible hints are masked by the convenient blurry style.

I’m not sure how l feel about Al slop here…

…but wait, l am!
I hate it.