AI People Are Just Fancy Cartoons And, Frankly, I Hope They Put Human Influencers Out Of Business
The day posting selfies of yourself online became a career option was a step backward for humanity.
Over the past few months, artificial intelligence technology has performed some impressive feats. For instance, ChatGPT (everyone’s favorite large language model) recently passed the bar exam.
That being said, ChatGPT can’t perform even basic legal research without making up caselaw. Although ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI are already useful in some contexts as tools, it’s going to be a long time before any kind of artificial intelligence can fully replace highly skilled workers.
On the other hand, if you have no skills whatsoever, it seems AI is coming to eat your lunch.
As first broken by Futurism, an artificially generated social media personality known as “Milla Sofia” recently came to prominence as she approached a six-figure following on TikTok. Dubbed a “virtual influencer and fashion model,” Milla Sofia is apparently fully generated by artificial intelligence.
“She” (I don’t know that we need to gender a bunch of ones and zeros strung together, but we’ve unfortunately got to talk about this somehow and this thing is definitely going for a feminine persona) takes the form of a good-looking 19-year-old woman. On her TikTok and Instagram accounts, Milla Sofia posts inane nonsense, fake photographs of celebrities and luxury travel, and (it almost goes without saying) glamorous bikini shots.
Other than that she occasionally has f*cked-up fingers in some of them (AI can’t seem to get hands right consistently), Milla Sofia’s posts are not so different from those of many of the other influencers out there. Should you want to see what appears to be an attractive young woman being attractive at various locations, that’s pretty much what you will get.
Of course, the people behind the scenes making the money off of AI accounts like those of Milla Sofia are not necessarily themselves attractive. And that’s probably fine as long as an account is somewhat upfront about what it’s doing and is not one of the many out-and-out scams that use sexy AI influencers.
In certain contexts, it is worrisome that advanced AI might lead to people losing their jobs. For example, Hollywood actors and writers are currently on strike due in part to legitimate concerns over exploitative use of AI by studio executives.
While we should care about actors and screenwriters being able to support themselves (at least if we don’t want all entertainment to become total garbage), I don’t think a similar level of concern is warranted over the effects of AI on human influencers. The day posting selfies of yourself online became a career option was a step backward for humanity.
You know what? I think extremely attractive people are going to be fine whether or not they can monetize their Instagram and TikTok accounts. Would-be human influencers would probably be better off anyway if they were pushed into the workforce, where attractive people significantly out-earn their homely peers.
There are lots of ways to monetize your appearance. Wearing a suit to a client meeting instead of board shorts is monetizing your appearance. It probably should be a little tougher though than just putting up photos of yourself online and watching the adulation roll in.
All the appeal of acquiring real skills aside, a few of the biological influencers out there are fighting back against the machines. We now not only have AI impersonating humans on social media for profit, we also have human beings impersonating AI on social media for profit. If you haven’t heard of the trend of human influencers pretending to be NPCs for cash, do not click on this YouTube link to find out what it is. Just consider yourself fortunate.
While I’ll admit a lack of understanding as to the draw of interacting with social media influencers, real or electronic, I still think maybe everyone in this odd little economic ecosystem could be better served by letting what amount to fancy cartoons draw the attention of online pervs. It’s not like a real connection with a real person was what was achieved on the thirst trap social media pages in the first place.
Being an influencer wreaks havoc on your mental health. Let the machines have it.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.
