Inside the Flourishing Sector of AI-Assisted Prostitution.
On social media, AI-generated influencers are proliferating, using stolen images from real adult content creators.
On Instagram, a wave of AI-generated influencers has emerged, appropriating videos of real models and adult content creators by modifying their faces with AI technology and monetizing their likeness through links to dating sites, Patreon, competitors of OnlyFans, and various AI applications. This practice, which began gaining attention in April, has grown exponentially, highlighting Instagram's inability to control the proliferation of AI-generated content on its platform and protect human creators, who claim to be affected in their ability to earn income.
A review of over 1,000 AI-generated Instagram accounts and analysis of Discord channels, where tips and strategies are exchanged, reveals that it is extremely easy to create these accounts and monetize them using AI tools and applications available on the market. Some of these applications can be found in the Apple and Google Play app stores. This study has made it evident that what was a minor issue on the platform has transformed into a large-scale situation, foreseeing a future for social media where AI-generated content could surpass that created by humans.
Elaina St James, an adult content creator, expressed her concern about the direct competition she faces from these AI accounts, many of which use stolen photos and videos of adult content models. St James noted that following the proliferation of AI-generated influencer accounts, her reach has significantly decreased, dropping from 1 to 5 million monthly views to less than a million in the last ten months. At times, her views have fallen below 500,000. She stated that this could be one of the reasons for her drop in views, as she is competing with "unnatural" content.
For his part, Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the security and trust initiative at Cornell Tech, documented around 900 accounts that were analyzed. He began his research after coming across one of these accounts by chance and believes this phenomenon may reflect the direction AI-generated content is taking on social media and the internet in general, where he envisions a growing “mixed reality.” Mantzarlis suggested that he might have found many more accounts had it not been for the restrictions imposed by Instagram on his data collection account.
In the analysis of the accounts, it was revealed that out of more than 1,000 AI-generated influencer accounts, 100 contained at least some deepfake content, in which the faces from existing videos of models and adult entertainers were replaced with AI-generated faces, creating the appearance of original content. The remaining 900 accounts shared images that were entirely generated by AI, which in some cases resembled real photographs or imitated celebrities. Of these 100 accounts sharing deepfake videos, 60 identified themselves as AI-generated, stating in their bios that they were “virtual models and influencers.” The remaining 40 made no such claims. Among the accounts recently removed by Meta was “Chloe Johnson,” which had a verification on Instagram and 171,000 followers.
