{"id":223057,"date":"2026-05-31T08:29:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/31\/code-refresh-opponents-air-ai-generated-ad-showing-woman-with-a-bacterial-infection-from-the-james-river\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T09:20:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T13:20:17","slug":"code-refresh-opponents-air-ai-generated-ad-showing-woman-with-a-bacterial-infection-from-the-james-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/31\/code-refresh-opponents-air-ai-generated-ad-showing-woman-with-a-bacterial-infection-from-the-james-river\/","title":{"rendered":"Code refresh opponents air AI-generated ad showing woman with a \u2018bacterial infection\u2019 from the James River"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.richmonder.org\/code-refresh-opponents-air-ai-generated-ad-showing-woman-with-a-bacterial-infection-from-the-james-river\/\">Code refresh opponents air AI-generated ad showing woman with a \u2018bacterial infection\u2019 from the James River<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.richmonder.org\/code-refresh-opponents-air-ai-generated-ad-showing-woman-with-a-bacterial-infection-from-the-james-river\/\">https:\/\/www.richmonder.org\/code-refresh-opponents-air-ai-generated-ad-showing-woman-with-a-bacterial-infection-from-the-james-river\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-31 08:29:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.richmonder.org\">www.richmonder.org<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Richmond Civic League, spearheaded by former City Council member Marty Jewell, funded a controversial anti-code refresh advertisement depicting a digitally-generated woman who develops sores from swimming in the James River due to raw sewage outflow.<\/li>\n<li>The League is an ardent opponent of the city&#8217;s rezoning initiative, which aims to increase residential density within Richmond city limits. They argue that more housing will exacerbate existing sewer issues that lead to pollution in the James River.<\/li>\n<li>The advertisement, aired on streaming video websites, mentions the fictional woman recounting a bacterial infection from swimming in the river near Belle Isle in July 2025, emphasizing the pollution problem.<\/li>\n<li>The group argues that the city needs to address its $1.8 billion backlog in water and sewer system repairs before considering rezoning, arguing the funds aren&#8217;t available and won&#8217;t likely be secured in the future.<\/li>\n<li>Jewell claimed the sewage pollution incident depicted in the video is a &#8220;true story,&#8221; although no specific, corroborating news stories were provided, and no identifiable victim was named.<\/li>\n<li>The Richmond Civic League insists that a referendum should be held on the rezoning initiative rather than leaving the decision to the City Council, advocating for citizen input on the issue.<\/li>\n<li>Jewell, citing health issues, was unavailable for phone interviews but provided a detailed, 1,116-word email in response to media inquiries, suggesting but not confirming the video&#8217;s origin from Google&#8217;s AI tools and did not clarify AI labeling or funding details.<\/li>\n<li>The League promises continued efforts to empower citizens&#8217; voices on local development plans, although further emails for follow-up on specific concerns like AI use and detailed funding sources were not returned as of publication.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Code refresh opponents air AI-generated ad showing woman with a \u2018bacterial infection\u2019 from the James&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":223058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/99\/06\/99067822-fdfd-42b1-ab19-555c33eefb89\/content\/images\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-29-at-11.50.31---AM.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223057"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223059,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223057\/revisions\/223059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}