The trend raises plenty of questions: do the humans interacting with these accounts even realize they don’t exist in the real world? Would it even bother them if they knew? Or do they realize, and it’s part of the draw?

Regardless, it’s a puzzling new turn in the road to AI content. While deepfake porn has proliferated online, the allure of influencers is arguably more complex. If we follow human influencers for a parasocial taste of a glamorous lifestyle, why would we follow a bot instead? Sofia might claim to be in Santorini, but the smudgy approximation of the Greek island’s iconic cliffs clearly isn’t real.

Then there’s the role of the real influencers that inspired these AI spin-offs. Image generators are trained on a huge wealth of publicly available visual data, meaning that these new accounts are more than likely ripping off their real-world counterparts.

Worse yet, some accounts are making use of face-swapping apps to overlay their AI influencers’ faces in videos originally posted by real-world influencers — often without giving credit.

Read more:

Tangermann, V. (2023, July 19). Fully AI-Generated Influencers Are Getting Thousands of Reactions Per Thirst Trap. Futurism. https://futurism.com/ai-generated-influencers