AI-created “virtual influencers” are stealing business from humans::Brands are turning to hyper-realistic, AI-generated influencers for promotions.

  • the_q@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    228
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    11 months ago

    Oh no. People who use their good looks to push lifestyles that are unattainable are suffering the smallest bit of inconvenience. Oh no.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          19
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          11 months ago

          And? Go ahead and automate my job. I will find something else to do with my life. Good luck btw my work is a bit more complicated than pretending to be famous and harassing restaurants for free food until I am 30 fat or both.

          • umbrella@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            11 months ago

            they are experimentally automating lawyers and doctors already, complexity is not the determining factor here.

            what is that something else in life you are going to do when they start pitching us to compete against machines? i can bet my ass on the fact they will use it to devalue human labour as much as possible, and most people cant afford to survive as is.

            • aicse@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              8
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              11 months ago

              Who are those “they” always refered? Isn’t it that the humanity is doing all for this?

              • umbrella@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                5
                ·
                11 months ago

                in this specific case “they” are tech corporations, tech ceos and their respective shareholders which might include a part of the global burgeoise.

                i think this tech would be used much differently if the rest of the knowledgeable people in humanity had a say/vote on it, besides financial interest.

              • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                6
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                11 months ago

                The “they” are the wealthy executives and investors doing whatever they can to optimize every single penny into their pockets

                In a way it is “the humanity doing it to themselves”, but they sure aren’t asking the average worker how they feel about it, or letting them have any easier time because of it. If enough work is automated, they’d rather fire people and have one person work for two while the second person starves.

            • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              11 months ago

              Cool. So it’s been 8 hours. How far have “they” progressed? Do I still have to go to work on Tuesday?

              Sorry the influencer you follow can’t get free stuff anymore.

              • umbrella@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                arrow-down
                3
                ·
                edit-2
                11 months ago

                You are naive to think stuff like this will change overnight. And you might be if you think you are getting singled out and spared.

                I don’t follow influencers nor do I have any traditional social media.

          • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            11 months ago

            It’s a well-known fact that most people think that all jobs can be automated except their own. Well, I’m distorting it a bit to extremes.

            As for me, I know my job can be automated. Actually, I’m automating it a bit to make fewer mistakes and give fewer fucks. And I know that eventually there may not be a need for me if I don’t change levels.

            Fields and professions are persistent, particular roles humans perform in them are not.

              • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                10 months ago

                Mixed up comments probably.

                Anyway, to you my question is - why do you think such a migration would work? You are older than when you entered your current profession. And it’s a competitive system, another people would have more experience than you.

    • Paddzr@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      11 months ago

      Or they’re just not good enough and there are prettier ones out there? God forbis Rachel’s only fans isn’t top because maybe she’s not that good at showing her pussy? Like anything in life, competition is a bitch.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      11 months ago

      Liking somebody for looks and such behavior only is not worse or better than disliking somebody for looks and such behavior only.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          If that meant that you don’t get my comment, then:

          Gloating is bad.

          It’s not a bad thing that someone could live fancy without killing people or stealing or embezzling funds in some administrative position, or something of the listed indirectly.

          Various shitcoin schemes go here too.

        • SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          14
          arrow-down
          7
          ·
          11 months ago

          Coz influencers can be people lucking into it, with AI influencers it’s mostly going to be brands cutting out the middlemen and making more money and reducing any chance of people receiving consequences of their actions as they can just delete that AI influencer and create a new one, whereas any human influencer will suffer the consequences even if very little for their actions

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            16
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            11 months ago

            What makes you think they can’t (and don’t) just fire a human influencer and hire a new one whenever they feel like it now?

          • Riskable@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            11 months ago

            Whoah there: Who says AI influencers aren’t the result of individual’s honest work? You don’t need an entire data center of computers to make your own AI influencer!

            Don’t assume there’s a corporation behind every AI persona. It could just be one guy with a lot of VRAM getting creative with prompts in his parent’s basement.

            • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              8
              ·
              11 months ago

              Well they are products of the tech industry, so they are inherently not honest or ethical.

              • ClamDrinker@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                8
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                11 months ago

                Ah yes. Like that damn internet and those cursed devices people use to access it. Anyone using those is inherently not honest or ethical.

                • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  8
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  The internet is the worst mistake in human history. I’m surprised you’d use that as your example.

          • Smoogs@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            11 months ago

            Right cuz blaming lobbyists and ad campaigns… that’s totally worked out for tobacco, guns, pharma and vehicle companies looking to shirk any accountability.

    • the_ocs@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      11 months ago

      First they came for the influencers, and I did not speak out, because I’m not an influencer…

      • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        11 months ago

        Give them some talent and they’re essentially movie actors. It’s just another form of entertainment and as little as I care about influencers this won’t stop with them. Anyone that appears on camera is fair game to be replaced.

      • BluesF@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        11 months ago

        There are some things I won’t be disappointed to see replaced by automation. Transitions are not well managed in this regard (retraining is expensive after all), but many jobs I feel should be automated because they suck. Not really sure where influencers fall on this scale… Can’t imagine it’s great for your mental health.

  • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    86
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    I prefer to think of it as leveling the playing field. You don’t have to be a 20 year old woman with the right face and body ratios to be an instagram model anymore. Anyone can! Seems like true equality to me.

      • jcg@halubilo.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        You also need an eye for the right aesthetics and some marketing savvy, there’s lots of pretty girls who still don’t meet the cut for “influencer”. Granted, being pretty and having marketing savvy is a really good recipe for success, but it still makes no guarantees.

  • vexikron@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    72
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    And thus social media has reached its apex.

    After a decade plus of bombarding people with a mix of whatever they desire most and whatever causes them to become emotionally invested to the point of exhaustion, we see the pinnacle innovation of social media:

    A literally completely fake person selling overpriced fashion I guarantee was made in a sweatshop, that nearly no one viewing ‘her’ can afford or look good in, who receives many thirsty comments praising her as if ‘she’ will be their friend or something, who in the process of doing all this also puts out of business actual human models who are simply fake in every sense of the word that is not literal.

    It is basically the most perfectly capitalist thing I can imagine. Everyone loses except the capital owners.

    I mean sure, maybe it will get some people whose entire personality is “I am pretty, worship me!” to think about doing something actually useful or learning and developing a real personality.

    But… we are fairly far into the predicted cyberpunk dystopia now. No its not exactly as predicted, but shockingly close in many ways.

    The average consumer of content cannot tell a bot or a fake person such as Aitana here from a real one, and there will just be another after news of Aitana in particular gets around.

    At this point I would say that most humans have basically failed a reverse Turing Test.

    • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      11 months ago

      Yeah, we really are steamrolling right into a cyberpunk dystopia, aren’t we? Well, if we can even include the world “punk” there. It might as well just be cyber-capitalism in the end.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      11 months ago

      I disagree with the word “capitalist”, but in emotion and general sense you nailed it.

      Just a bit sad we’re as a planet navigating Lem’s “The Megabit Bomb” and of course “Summa Technologiae” so slowly.

      I mean sure, maybe it will get some people whose entire personality is “I am pretty, worship me!” to think about doing something actually useful or learning and developing a real personality.

      You’d be surprised.

  • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    55
    ·
    11 months ago

    Wasn’t there a social media website that did a massive bot purge a while ago and most influencers found out that like 90+% of their audiences were actually bots anyway? sounds like this is just a logical conclusion and the rest of us can get on with our lives while bots entertain bots.

      • clearleaf@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        11 months ago

        Are there any that are real in the sense that they contribute something of value to society?

        • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          11 months ago

          Even doctors are liable to be replaced by AI. I don’t know what counts as “something of value to society” to you, and frankly that’s the sort of argument that is never worth having. But generally speaking, it doesn’t get much more valuable for society than doctors.

          • meat_popsicle@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            11 months ago

            If an AI can outperform a human doctor, isn’t that a good thing? We should always strive to improve survival for patients - it’s not about doctors jobs but patient survival and long term health outcomes.

            I would love for doctors to become AI if the AI improves our growing health inequities and inequalities.

            • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              11 months ago

              Part of the issue is that this rush to transition to AI is not done to increase quality of work, but to sav time and costs. If the point was to improve the treatment, keeping a human doctor plus AI might result in better outcomes. But AI or no AI, a for-profit medical system won’t elliminate health inequalities.

              It’s also worth keeping in mind not all forms of work are actually enhanced by AI participation. Journalists aren’t aided by language models that regularly hallucinate false informations.

          • clearleaf@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            11 months ago

            Being a doctor would be a real job, but the only jobs I’ve seen actually getting replaced are things like clickbait content farms, scams, marketing, exploitive gambling-centric video games, and other such garbage. Unlike being a doctor it’s never been hard to shit that stuff out into the world. And since these neural networks aren’t actually that good, I’ll believe they can replace doctors when I see it.

              • clearleaf@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                11 months ago

                I’ve seen some pretty interesting images and some funny text but nothing that amounts to a big enough vision that it’s something cohesive like a complete movie or a book. I’ve seen Joel Haver videos but those aren’t made by pushing a button and getting a video.

              • SpookyUnderwear@eviltoast.org
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                11 months ago

                Replaced implies humans are no longer writing or creating art, which obviously isn’t the case. They just have more competition now.

                • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  Replaced implies some, likely many humans won’t be able to compete and will be driven out of the field. Not by any other more skillful artist, but simply by AI output. Which is an inevitability. Some might say it’s already happening.

  • brsrklf@jlai.lu
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    47
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    11 months ago

    Ok, I’m all for worrying about the impact of AI in jobs but… Living advertisements are easy to replace, what a suprise.

    People who make actual interesting and/or funny videos, those that require personal work and are a direct result of the creator’s skills or interests, are not really at risk of this.

    Wow, a bunch of assholes just getting paid for showing you free stuff they got, pretending to be relatable and your friend while evading their taxes in Dubai, may be out of business. And think of those parents who won’t be able to exploit their kids by getting them free toys and exposing them to the whole world!

    I don’t think I will lose any sleep over this.

      • brsrklf@jlai.lu
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        11 months ago

        They’ve chosen series with huge amounts of existing content to imitate and got bad stuff from it. I am not too worried for people making more personal content.

        Yeah, maybe some time in the future you’ll get infinite serial AI content with basic entertainment value. I’d say half of Disney productions already got there without needing AI, just shotgun writing. And lots of people are already bored of it all and now only look for the good stuff.

        • Riskable@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          It’ll be a good while before an AI generates an Oscar-winning script or a whole movie but most movies and TV shows are very formulaic. Would it really be that surprising if AIs were generating the entertainment equivalent of Hannah Montana in a few years? Or the latest Hallmark Christmas special (LOL)?

          My guess is five years: That’s how long it’ll be before we start getting a flood of half-decent AI-generated shows/movies. Where the script is good but the animation/video are “a little off”.

          I mean, come on: There’s so many successful TV shows and movies that are total shit! You think AI can’t do better with just the tiniest bit of evolutionary improvements (and better hardware)?

          Edit: I expect AI videos to be a revolution! Where we finally break free from the Hollywood and “big mega” cookie cutter stories. It’ll give creative people the power to make the movies they want without heavy-handed censorship and executives that require everything dumbed down for the lowest common viewer.

        • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          11 months ago

          I mean yeah, far more than are coming out of Marvel, Disney and Hollywood in general.

          • unautrenom@jlai.lu
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            edit-2
            11 months ago

            (tbf that’s not a really high bar. These companies ask writers to NOT take any risk with their writing so to not “rock the boat” so to speak)

  • Handles@leminal.space
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    11 months ago

    Let’s define “stealing” and “business” here.

    1. Influencers don’t produce anything, nor do they add intrinsic value to products they promote. Not much business to that if you ask me.

    2. They do already compete fiercely for brands’ atention so every successful influencer by definition has “stolen” potential income from others.

    If you want to split hairs, influencers’ work is creating an idealised image that they project to peddle products. If AI can outmatch them in that regard, I see no problem with that.

    • cjsolx@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      The only problem I have with that is the notion that a company gets to consolidate funds that were previously going to an actual real person. Now, if we could rely on big business to pass on those savings to their customers and employees, that would be one thing. But we can’t.

      • Handles@leminal.space
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        11 months ago

        At least move those microwave ovens, refrigerators and colour tee-vees to earn your wage.

      • FlaminGoku@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        Got some installed LLM models, custom skins, simulated memories

        We’ve got your convo… generated

        (We’ve got artificial personalities)

  • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    11 months ago

    If your job is easy, then it’ll probably get replaced with AI eventually. What’s easier than being an influencer?

    • tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      If you only do the easy part, then yes that’s infinitely replaceable. Being a pretty face is exactly that, and AI can do that all day long.

      Being actually entertaining and engaging, though, is a different story, and AI is struggling to pick that up. And of course teams of corporate marketers continually fail at this.

      But yes, the “job” of “being attractive on the internet” can now be outsourced to machines.

      • BigPotato@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        Right, but for corporations once you mention the lack of risk that your AI influencer will rape some kids or turn out to be something equally horrible the equation becomes infinitely skewed in the AI’s favor.

        So, what I’m saying is, rule34 people gotta get to work making all those AI do horrible things and we’ll be back to expecting our brand shills to have a heartbeat.

        • tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          Clearly you haven’t spent 3 minutes playing with StableDiffusion. AI has already plumbed the depths of human awfulness.

    • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      AI is improving by leaps and bounds. I’ve fiddled with Stable Diffusion for over a year and I’ve seen it go from mostly random, highly deformed, blurry Polaroid quality images to high def, lifelike, in almost any pose imaginable images. And the same improvement goes for non-photo quality images too. Highly-skilled illustrators with degrees are mostly fucked. This whole “but I’m so much more efficient” argument doesn’t hold water in our economy. Producing 3X more doesn’t mean people consume 3X more, it means you’re 3X overstaffed.

      Now for streamers and influencers I’ll admit some of them have cardboard personalities and are easily replaced. Someone like JSE (I don’t watch much so sorry if my references are dated) is a little more animated than average so that’s gonna be harder to replicate, but does it need to be replicated in order to steal views? Jack is one man and he can’t stream 24x7 and many would prefer an “always on” streamer to someone with better content but available intermittently.

      Hell, look at Amazon. It used to be filled with name brand products that you could rely upon because reputations were at stake. Now it’s an endless sea of cloned and relabeled products that are between decent and total crap, but is that hurting Amazon’s bottom line? Nope. The stuff is crap but it’s cheap, readily available, and it arrives in 24 hours. Who needs quality???

      TL;DR - AI doesn’t need to be good, it needs to be good enough, and when it breaches that threshold you’ll see quality content creators go into overdrive to keep up or pack it in because the effort is no longer worth the payout.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      11 months ago

      So much of the job is face tuned and post-productioned anyway. And what are you even doing? Unboxing videos? Soy face in front of a sports car or a machine gun?

      The real job of the modern influencer isn’t sitting in front of a camera. It’s all the SEO and brown nosing and cross-posting to raise your brand profile.

      In a media economy where everything is online is it any wonder that an AI video in a feedback loop with a bunch of AI controlled bot “users” is going to max out on a platform that only knows how to reward these artificially manipulated metrics?

  • Mandy@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    47
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    11 months ago

    Damn, what a shame, those poor poor influencers

    maybe they need to get an actual job now?

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      12
      ·
      11 months ago

      Well, yes. Looking at human beauty without deep communication and intelligence is similar to playing video games when you want a Matrix-like simulation of our world. You just feel that it’s all textures put onto polygons drawn on your screen and there’s no magic behind it.

    • Huschke@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      ·
      11 months ago

      For people like me that hadn’t heard bout the theory.

      “The dead Internet theory is an online conspiracy theory that asserts that the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content that is manipulated by algorithmic curation, marginalizing organic human activity”

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory

      • wikibot@lemmy.worldB
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

        The dead Internet theory is an online conspiracy theory that asserts that the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content that is manipulated by algorithmic curation, marginalizing organic human activity. Proponents of the theory believe these bots are created intentionally to help manipulate algorithms and boost search results in order to ultimately manipulate consumers. Furthermore, some proponents of the theory accuse government agencies of using bots to manipulate public perception, stating "The U.S. government is engaging in an artificial intelligence powered gaslighting of the entire world population". The date given for this "death" was generally around 2016 or 2017.The theory has gained traction because much of the observed phenomena is grounded in quantifiable phenomena like increased bot traffic. However, the idea that it is a coordinated psyop has been described by Kaitlin Tiffany, staff writer at The Atlantic, as a "paranoid fantasy," even if there are legitimate criticisms involving bot traffic and the integrity of the internet.

        article | about

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        11 months ago

        I mean, it’s not that much of a conspiracy, especially if we consider human bots to be bots and not humans.

        About the “coordinated” part being false and paranoid - well, it generally works, coordinated or not.