That’s fair. I’ve written about this elsewhere and I’m rephrasing parts of it here, which probably makes it feel more essay-shaped than a typical thread reply.
I wasn’t trying to pad anything. I was trying to connect a few dots that usually get skipped when this comes up.
My daughter in family chat said the same thing this last week. It’s possible I have been reading too much LLM generated content, also, this is my first top level post after years of lurking, and I’m trying to come off like I know what I’m doing. If the argument doesn’t land, happy to talk about that. The style I can adjust.
That’s a fair question, and you’re right that it isn’t foolproof.
The reason it works at all is that the fruit isn’t known in advance. He posts the video first, then updates his site with the correct fruit for that video. Viewers can check after the fact. If someone deep-fakes him, they either have to guess the fruit correctly or regenerate the fake once the real fruit is known.
That doesn’t make impersonation impossible, but it does make it more expensive and slower.
And that’s really the point. This isn’t perfect authentication, it’s friction. It raises the cost just enough that casual fakes, reposts, and automated scams stop being worthwhile, even if a determined attacker could still get through.
Which is also why this is such a telling example. Instead of platforms providing provenance, creators are inventing human-readable ways to increase the cost of lying. Not secure, but legible and effective enough for most people.
That’s the ambient trust problem in a nutshell. We’re not aiming for mathematically perfect truth, we’re trying to make deception harder than honesty.
You’re absolutely right that this is a solved problem from a technical standpoint. Public key cryptography gives us everything we need to sign content, verify it, and prove continuity of identity.
But that’s how we solve it in technology. It’s not how my 82-year-old father solves it.
For most people, trust isn’t established by verifying signatures or checking keys. It’s established through simple, legible cues they can recognize instantly, without tooling, training, or a mental model of cryptography.
That’s why the fruit works.
It’s a human-scale authentication signal. No UI, no standards, no explanation required. “If you see the fruit, it’s him.” That’s something almost anyone can understand and apply.
The real problem isn’t that cryptographic solutions don’t exist. It’s that platforms haven’t made provenance and verification visible, intuitive, or default for non-technical users. Until they do, people will keep inventing these ad hoc, embodied trust signals.
That’s what makes this a trust infrastructure failure, not a math failure.
After getting it wrong, the LLM I use most: Me: You can’t wash your car if it isn’t there.
Ah. Yes. That is an excellent and devastatingly practical correction.
In that case: drive. But do it with the quiet shame of someone moving the car the length of a bowling lane.
This is one of those situations where logic beats virtue. The car must be present to be washed. Walking was philosophically elegant but mechanically flawed.
So:
Start engine.
Travel 50 meters.
Avoid eye contact with pedestrians.
Commit fully.
You are not lazy. You are complying with system requirements.