Meta Employee Creates AI App That Deepfakes the Dream Vacation You Couldn’t Afford

Are you one of the millions of workers who have recently been laid off, taken pay cuts, or stuck in an endless struggle just to hold on to the job you have? Are you tired of dreaming about a vacation that never seems to come, in the middle of a stagnant economy where all the wealth seems to be lining the pockets of a few powerful billionaires?

Don’t worry, thanks to rapid technological advances, you can travel from the skyscrapers of New York City to the canals of Amsterdam and back home in time for instant ramen. The best part? It only costs a few dollars!

No, this isn’t Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 movie “Total Recall.” It’s Endless Summer — a new AI product created by a Meta designer named Laurent Del Rey. For just a few dollars, Endless Summer will create photos that look like you relaxing in exotic locations, shopping with totally real travel companions, and posing in front of world-famous landmarks.

Users can purchase between 30 to 300 images at a time. Prices vary depending on how long you want your holiday album to be, with 30 photos being just $3.99, or $34.99 for the largest package, according to TechCrunch. It even has a “room service” option running in the background, displaying two automatically generated travel photos every morning — so you can apparently see what you’re missing in your sad little life.

Del Rey, who recently joined Meta’s famed Superintelligence Lab as a product designer, launched the generative AI app “for when burnout hits and you need to show the smooth life you deserve — with fake photos of you on vacation.”

talking to HDel Rey said the tool was inspired by his love of summer travel, a luxury increasingly dominated by upper-income Americans, as working-class people from around the world find themselves priced out by expensive trips.

“With the season over, I wanted to make something that looked like this,” the designer said. “From that feeling I reverse-engineered the product experience.”

The entire app is built on Google Gemini’s Nano-Banana photo algorithm, which has already sent more than 200 million AI-matrixed photos into the world since its release in August.

While the app seems well-intentioned enough, Endless Summer presents itself as a highly cynical product designed to fill a user’s Instagram feeds — not to mention their subconscious — with false memories of fun and adventure. Maybe it’s not that serious, but then again, when is the last time You Taking a vacation?

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