Social media has been abuzz over a new welcome sign for Detroit erected on I-94 ahead of the NFL Draft, with lots of people claiming the finished product falls short of the grand “Hollywood”-style sign they were promised.
Even Mayor Mike Duggan admitted he was confused over what to expect, answering a question about the sign during a Thursday press conference about the NFL Draft.
“I gotta go over and take a look at it myself and experience it driving on 94,” Duggan said with a chuckle.
Duggan said the project was dreamed up by Brad Dick, the city’s “tremendously ambitious general services director.”
“He said, ‘I want to do something besides the boring Welcome to Detroit signs. I want to do this,’” Duggan recalled. “I said, ‘Sure, Brad. I’m more interested in you getting the trash up off the freeway.’”
The mayor said he didn’t really pay attention to the project until about a month ago when he saw what appeared to be a rendering of the sign on social media.
“I saw a post on Instagram of a spectacular Hollywood sign and I called Brad and I said, ‘That’s terrific! I had no idea you were thinking that big,’” Duggan said. “He says, ‘That’s a fake post. Some guy on Instagram just made it up. That’s not our plan.’ I said, ‘Brad, you got a problem. People are gonna think the fake post is the real Detroit sign.’ He says, ‘No, no, you don’t really understand social media. People don’t confuse fake posts with real life.’”
Of course, people confuse fake posts on social media with reality all the time — a problem that is likely to only get worse with the rise of AI-generated images and “deepfake” technology.
Duggan said other officials were also fooled, adding that on Wednesday, he got an email from a procurement director in New Jersey who “[demanded] I fire the procurement staff because they didn’t get delivered the sign that we ordered.”
“They’re circulating the fake post under what we got and claiming that the city of Detroit didn’t deliver what we promised,” Duggan said.
“I guess Brad will learn something about being ambitious and trying to do something special, but I applaud the ambition of doing something a cut above the boring side,” Duggan added. “And I think if he hadn’t been judged against that extraordinary artist on Instagram, he’d have done fine.”
A number of unofficial renderings of a “Hollywood”-style sign began circulating on social media shortly after the project was reported in February, with one image showing big, blocky white letters towering over I-94. It’s unclear who is behind it, but it appears to have been created using generative artificial intelligence, which can create realistic images based on text prompts. Such images have flooded social media in recent months as the technology has developed and become more widely available.
While amusing, this whole ordeal is a warning that people will need to be ever vigilant in safeguarding against “fake news” and misinformation in the social media age. Stay woke!
Lee DeVito
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