Bricklayer travels more than 2 thousand km in search of virtual bride and discovers in BH that beloved is made by Artificial Intelligence
Comadre, pulls out the chair and has a cup of coffee to hold back the amazement, because the internet is crossing all limits and the love illusion has broken a distance record! A bricklayer from Maranhão faced more than 2 thousand kilometers of bus road to Belo Horizonte in search of the woman of his dreams, but when he arrived in the capital of Minas Gerais he discovered the hard way that the promised bride was nothing more than a creation of Artificial Intelligence!
The desperate search for affection almost ended in tragedy on the streets of Belo Horizonte, comadre! At 49 years old and divorced, bricklayer Edimar Rocha Martins, who is currently on leave by the INSS, embarked last Friday in Imperatriz, Maranhão, facing an exhausting journey of more than 2 thousand kilometers until he landed in Minas Gerais on Sunday (11). The motivation for the journey was to find the alleged Jéssica Oliveira — known on the internet as "Jessica Fazendeira" — a character generated entirely by computer graphics who has more than 300 thousand followers, advertises commercial products and publishes videos with a hyper-realistic voice and features claiming to be a widow and to be looking for a man to share her life in the countryside.
According to Edimar, the account had long private dialogues with him, feeding the passion and promising to send an address, pay for tickets and welcome him with open arms. The worker did not suspect malice precisely because the alleged suitor never asked him for a penny, which encouraged him to take the road even without having the exact address of her home. When he stepped on the bus terminal in the capital of Minas Gerais, the penny began to drop painfully: the bricklayer spent hours walking through the shops and streets showing printed photos and images on his cell phone to pedestrians, and even went to a local radio station asking for help to locate the girl's whereabouts, until he realized that no one knew her because she simply did not exist in the real world.
With his luggage in hand, disillusioned and without resources to support himself in the city, Edimar was supported by the Migrant Reception and Care Unit of the City of Belo Horizonte. The Municipal Secretariat of Social Assistance and Human Rights offered baths, food, technical shelter with guidance on digital traps and paid for the bus ticket to Augustinópolis, in Tocantins, his hometown, where he wanted to take shelter. Before boarding on Tuesday afternoon (13), the worker vented indignant at the void left by technology, warning that the creation of fake people to deceive the hearts of others should be severely punished by law to prevent other dreamers from falling into similar traps.
It's a very serious warning for everyone who surfs the internet, right comadre? Technology advances by leaps and bounds, but the human heart remains fragile and needy, falling easily into the conversation of perfect fake faces. All care with screens is still not enough!
And you, comadre? Do you know someone who talks to strangers on the internet and believes everything they see or has learned to be suspicious of miraculous promises on social networks?