Viral 'AI invented a water reflection trick' post was sarcasm — the trick looks terrible
teortaxesTex · x · 2026-10-29
teortaxesTex first hyped that GPT-5.6 Sol, after 30 minutes of nudging, invented a clever graphics trick: a single in-screen planar reflection capture whose height switches based on nearby water, captioned "AGI is here."
The attached ChatGPT deep-dive flips the story: the theory is sound (planar reflections, mirrored camera ymirror=2h−y, reusing one capture to save GPU work), but in the actual video the reflections pop in and out and shift abruptly — the poster was being sarcastic, and the model's "engineering feat" is a janky workaround with visible artifacts. A case study in a viral "AI invented something" narrative getting debunked frame by frame.
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