| Personal and social bounds on the ethics of sincerity are interesting to explore. Does a deep-faked video thank-you from the CEO feel more or less sincere than other long-established gestures? 1. Flowers organised by assistants with a card signed “by the CEO” without their knowledge or involvement. (“Thank you for the flowers!” “The flowers? Oh, yes. The flowers.”) 2. An assistant PMing everyone individually on a company Slack channel from the CEO's account to say how _deeply valued_ they are as a SincereApp employee. 3. Thank-yous ghost-written by professional writers bearing another's signature. (Freelance letter writing exists already, although not to the extent that it's portrayed in _Her_ where lovers, family members and professional colleagues hire Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore Twombly to write their personal correspondence and love notes for 20 years straight.) 4. Professional actors or celebrities congratulating strangers they don't know. (Already exists at https://www.cameo.com/.) 5. Handwritten notes from company employees thanking you for your belief in their company, when handwriting a note is a to-do on a packing and shipping checklist. 6. Mailmerged printed marketing proclaiming, “You're our favourite customer, [name]!” All of these feign sincerity to some degree. The difference with the deepfaked video thankery linked here is that it's not well-known to be fake yet. There will be an initial period where people are impressed by it (they sent flowers!), then disappointed, betrayed, and tricked to learn that the gesture was automated. |