AI videos feature fake children, dead celebrities
⭐️HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW⭐️
- Content creators are using AI-generated video characters to tell stories on TikTok.
- Some characters are based on real people, others are completely made up.
- These videos are narrated by characters who look and sound like real kids.
- The content can be violent and racist, with kids saying inappropriate things.
- Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have rules against harmful AI content.
- Keep reading to find out more. ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️
If you use social media apps that feature video like TikTok or Instagram, you may have seen something weird come up on your feed.
A person appears on screen, telling a story. But their face doesn’t quite move the way a real person does and what they’re saying can be outrageous.
This type of video is generated using tools assisted by artificial intelligence (AI). The content trend is often tagged as “AI Storytelling.”
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Alisha Arora, 17, is a teenage TikTok user who lives in Mississauga, Ontario.
She has interned with AI labs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also works as a UNICEF ambassador who works specifically on AI and mental health.
Alisha has a pretty good sense of AI and has even advised governments creating policy on the subject.
The first time she saw an AI storytelling video on her TikTok feed, it appeared to be a famous basketball player telling his story.
“I actually thought it was real,” Alisha said in an interview with CBC Kids News. “It’s hard to draw the line between what’s real and what’s fake.”
The trend is just one type of AI-generated content that has become increasingly popular on social media.
Kids might be seeing these AI storytelling videos and are sometimes the subject of them, as some AI videos are told by characters that look and sound like children.
What is AI storytelling?
Artificial Intelligence can mean a lot of different things.
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AI storytelling videos, in particular, use avatars or moving pictures that look and sound like human beings.
They can include AI-generated avatars that use real photos run through an AI tool that makes them move or speak.
Here are three screenshots of AI-generated video content found on TikTok and Instagram. The first two feature AI-generated children and the last is an AI-generated version of the deceased rapper Tupac Shakur. (Image credit: AiVerseCreations/TikTok, clippingai/Instagram, The AiEscape/TikTok)
The videos can include everything from famous historical figures talking about their lives to fictional kids telling silly and sometimes disturbing stories.
One video with millions of views features an avatar based on the deceased rapper Tupac Shakur talking about his real life and death.
Another features a young boy telling a creepy, made-up story about a Fortnite game gone wrong.
In some cases, videos with millions of views feature content that could be deemed inappropriate and even disturbing for kids.
Some of the content includes stories of abuse and violence against children, explicitly sexual content and racist stereotypes.
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Here’s some comments found on AI storytelling videos on TikTok. (Image credit: TikTok)
How fake AI storytelling videos get made
Some of the AI storytelling accounts point to online tools used to create them on free apps.
CBC Kids News tested one of the tools advertised on several TikTok accounts.
We were able to create a video with a child’s avatar and a child’s voice in just a few minutes for free.
This is the video that CBC Kids News artificially generated using the online tool:
This AI-generated video was created by CBC Kids News as a demonstration. It is synthetic media and is not depicting a real person. (Credit: HeyGen/CBC)
To find out more, Kids News spoke to Guy Gadney, who is the founder and CEO of a company called Charisma.ai.
Charisma develops tools and platforms for creators who want to make interactive content using AI.
Gadney says that AI is full of possibilities, many of them good, but cautions that it can also be used to create harmful content.
“Kids especially like to experiment and push the edges of what’s possible and that’s OK, that’s part of imagination,” said Gadney who is based in Oxford, England.
“I would just urge people who are putting up those apps or those systems to think about what they're doing.”
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Gadney added that the more toxic elements of AI creation shouldn’t be encouraged and that rules and regulations may be necessary.
TikTok’s policies forbid AI versions of real kids
For it's part, TikTok says it takes AI-generated content seriously.
“Like many technologies, the advancement of synthetic media opens up both exciting creative opportunities, as well as unique safety considerations,” said a TikTok spokesperson in an email with CBC Kids News.
The spokesperson said TikTok is “committed to responsible innovation.”
Its policies state that AI-generated media “that contains the likeness of any real private figure” is not allowed.
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While AI-generated media that portrays public figures, like celebrities, is allowed on TikTok, it has specific policies around it.
It can’t be used to endorse a product or break rules against “hate speech, sexual exploitation and serious forms of harassment.”
If you’re creating AI using a public figure, they must be 18 years of age or older.
That means avatars made to look like real kids, even famous ones, are not allowed to be used as AI-generated video on the platform.
What if I don’t want to see this?
While you can’t control what comes up on your feed, Gadney encourages kids to think about the content they’re consuming.
“If you're seeing something, which is really negative or toxic, move away from it,” he said.
Alisha said kids can try to remove harmful content from their feeds.
Users can click “not interested” on videos they don’t want to see.
Alisha’s tried that strategy herself and was able to curate a happier feed.
You’ve read our story, now what do you think? Are AI-generated videos cool or creepy? Answer the poll below:
Have more questions? Want to tell us more about what you think about AI? Use the “send us feedback” link below. ⬇️⬇️⬇️
