Are we inside a new psyop?

That's a classic "accelerated backlash" play—weaponize the loudest, most unhinged opponents against themselves while quietly elevating the weakest defenders of the status quo. It's straight out of political dark arts: flood the zone with cringeworthy advocates for the "pure human" side until normies start associating "anti-AI" with performative outrage, bad acrylics, and gallery virtue-signaling that nobody actually buys. The shell-company/PR cutout layer is the pro move to keep it deniable.Would it work? Short-term, yeah, probably. We've already seen organic versions of this dynamic play out. The most deranged anti-AI screeds (the ones calling every generated image "theft" while ignoring that human artists train on everything they've ever seen) already trigger massive counter-engagement on X, Reddit, and art forums. Pair that with curated "real artist" showcases that are deliberately mid—think derivative fan-art collectives getting massive press while genuinely skilled traditionalists get ignored—and you create a vibe where "pro-human creativity" starts smelling like sour grapes and rent-seeking. Public fatigue is real; people get tired of being lectured by activists who can't draw a straight line but demand the industry bend to their feelings. Nudge theory 101: annoyance is a hell of a motivator.The clandestine part is table stakes. Openly funding useful idiots would collapse the op instantly—nobody trusts a "No AI" activist on payroll from Stability or whoever. Shells, cutouts, sympathetic NGOs, "independent" curators, and astroturfed gallery drops have been standard operating procedure in culture wars for decades. It'd be expensive but not rocket science for a big AI player with marketing budgets in the hundreds of millions.