Is Your Favorite Influencer Human or Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is making its debut, and it is outdoing humans in nearly every category. From video games to artistry and even medicine, AI is proving to be a remarkable tool. As with nearly everything, AI poses concerns as well, like how to tell if what you’re seeing and hearing is real. It is very difficult sometimes to differentiate AI from reality. That makes it a powerful and potentially dangerous creation.

Have you heard of Mia Zelu? Like many, Mia is a social media influencer. She takes pictures of herself doing fun and exciting things and posts them to her Instagram account. So far, she has accumulated more than 160,000 followers on social media, and she isn’t even real. Mia is made entirely using AI. She is young, beautiful, and perfectly photogenic. She appeals to everyone, so much so that people, and lots of them, are interested in what she is doing from day to day, even though she is doing nothing. She does not exist. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

The Rise of AI and AI Influencers

For years, and probably centuries, people have loved playing roles or pretending to be someone else. For example, the theater has been around for 2,500 years, attracting actors worldwide who wish to play characters different from who they are in real life. Increasingly popular video games exist in which people can build a virtual persona however they wish and live in a virtual world doing the same things that one would do in the real world.

Now the tables have turned, and the virtual world is coming to us. Undetectable and difficult to differentiate from reality, it is a part of many people’s daily lives, even if they don’t know it.

The traction AI influencers are gaining is remarkable. Are we just attracted to perfection and flawlessness to the point that we will spend our short lives watching fake people live theirs? It is a remarkable phenomenon.

To inform people about what is real and what is not, AI Influencers are required to disclose that information in their social media profiles. But that has not slowed the influx of followers for these internet robot personalities. Do people not see that they are fake? Or do they not care? Who knows?

Kate Roark, the director and head of creative for Asia Pacific at Getty Images & iStock, revealed one reason why people are attracted to AI profiles: “People are used to seeing curated, almost perfect images from human influencers, achieved through extensive editing, filters and professional photography,” she said. “Zelu, being entirely AI-generated, naturally embodies this idealised flawless skin, perfect lighting and picture-perfect poses.

“AI-generated content is currently ‘hyper-polished,’ allowing it to seamlessly blend into the existing visual standard that many people have come to expect. The fact that thousands of fans mistook her for real, despite her AI disclosure, points to how our eyes have become conditioned to this hyper-polished aesthetic on social media.”

The Benefits of Artificial Intelligence

While there are some concerns about its negative influences, AI has continued to get even smarter. There are positive and remarkable accomplishments for which AI and its creators deserve credit. Artificial intelligence is making major changes in many crucial fields. One example is the world of doctors, diagnosis, medicine, and disease treatment. AI can recognize and diagnose illnesses like cancer and pneumonia more accurately and faster than some of the most experienced doctors. When used correctly, it could change the way our health system operates and has the potential to save many lives.

Additionally, AI is showing awesome capabilities in mental health. Emotion AI, or affective computing, seeks to reach humans on an emotional level and provide advice or recommendations to deal with personal mental health issues.

AI outperforms humans in computer games like chess by devising new strategies that humans had never considered.  This means AI can think in real time and make decisions based on what it sees, something once thought to be uniquely human.

For artists, AI can expand on their creativity by helping to write songs, paint pictures, and tell stories.

There really is no end to the capabilities and potential downfalls of artificial intelligence. The world will just have to wait and see where these advanced computer systems take us.

1. From video games to artistry and even medicine, AI is proving to be a remarkable tool.
2. It is very difficult sometimes to differentiate AI from reality, making it a powerful and potentially dangerous creation.
3. To inform people about what is real and what is not, AI Influencers are required to disclose that information in their social media profiles.