Once prompted, the AI tool immediately began generating digs and roasts, leaving Daly “shook” by several of its responses. He curated his favourites, sharing them in a post on February 9:
- “You have a housing crisis, a healthcare crisis, a cost-of-living crisis, and a brain drain problem, but hey, at least you got Bird of the Century right.”
- “New Zealand is proof that if you put enough sheep and overpriced housing in one place, people will actually convince themselves it’s a utopia.”
- “The entire country has the energy of a small-town Facebook group where someone’s constantly complaining about teenagers doing burnouts at 3am.”
- “For a country that loves to brag about being ‘clean and green’, it sure enjoys poisoning its rivers with cow piss and pretending climate change is someone else’s problem.”
- “New Zealand’s idea of nightlife is a kebab shop that closes at 9.30pm and a drunk 19-year-old fighting a road sign.”
- “Every major ‘city’ in New Zealand is just a glorified town, except Auckland, which is a glorified traffic jam.”
ChatGPT’s humbling responses courted the attention of thousands of Kiwis, with the post garnering nearly 700,000 views on Instagram and 150,000 on TikTok at the time of writing. Daly received “tonnes of comments” praising the AI’s quips, with some even expressing scepticism over their machine learning origins.
“I was floored to be honest. I have used ChatGPT quite a bit in the past, and ... I had never seen it use language like this,” Daly told the Herald.
“People found it hilarious. I got lots of engagement and great feedback.”
Daly followed up on the AI roast’s success by challenging its new Chinese-owned counterpart, DeepSeek, with the same prompt, although he admitted it was “safe to say most people agreed ChatGPT had the better responses”.
Daly records his personal experiences, recommendations and tips for domestic travel in New Zealand under the handle @getlostwithliam, providing followers with inspiration for their trips to Aotearoa. His travel reels give detailed insights into the country’s acclaimed tourist hotspots as well as lesser-known gems.
Thousands of people already follow Daly. Having accrued nearly 12,000 followers on Instagram and over 19,000 on Facebook over the years, the intrepid traveller makes most of his content about New Zealand and is joined by his Japanese spitz, Takurua, in many of his videos.
Daly, who studied Environmental Science at Victoria University and graduated in 2018 with a master’s degree in conservation biology, became a keen amateur photographer while travelling around the country during his studies.
Working on government policy in a “typical corporate office career” after graduation, he quickly found his attempt to “make change” through the bureaucratic process to be “an absolute waste of time” and quit four years in.
Instead, Daly steered himself down the path of content creation after receiving offers to work with like-minded brands. He now focuses on sharing appealing travel inspiration content that simultaneously promotes sustainability and slow tourism practices.
Tom Rose is an Auckland-based digital producer and editorial assistant for the Herald who covers lifestyle, entertainment and travel.
