Seems like good old Word Of Mouth where information is relayed among people who know each other in real life, is probably going to make a big comeback for this kind of stuff.

Because if you can't trust any media on the internet being "real" the only trustworthy sources you'll have is the real people in your real life.

We need smarter humans.

I don't read five star reviews ever anymore. If I want to find a believable endorsement of a product, I'll look for a four-star review that contains a criticism that isn't that bothersome to me personally, but legitimate enough that I can imagine a customer who would be deterred by it.

We moved a year ago, and I found my favorite pizza guy, Tony, by maybe the most convincing online review I've ever read. The most recent review on google maps was a one-star that was basically like "I met Tony and he casually used foul language etc etc there is no need for profanity etc pizza was some of the best I've ever had though"

Often times reviews are written by people with English not as a first language, or the reviews are machine translated (nowadays with AI itself). Many AIs use real reviews as templates to train on, so its not surprising to me that the differences aren't easily spotted. The main tells are when it uses too flowery language and tone and doesn't get to the point.

To me it seems similar to if you heard an electronic speaker playing a bird call vs. a real bird call, could you tell the real one from a distance?

If you were an expert birdwatcher you could probably tell easier. If the speaker repeated the exact same call on a loop you could tell, if you were in earshot of electronic buzzing in the background you could also, but depending on how sophisticated the speaker is setup (like delay and variety of calls, you might not.

I am not surprised. I can rarely tell the difference.