Loiek, a 21-year-old Ukrainian, discovered that artificial intelligence had used her image to create alter personas on Chinese social media sites after launching her YouTube channel in November
Her digital counterparts, such as “Natasha,” claimed to be Russian women proficient in Chinese. They sought to express gratitude to China for its assistance to Russia and to generate a small income by selling products such as Russian chocolates.
Additionally, the false accounts in China had hundreds of thousands of followers, significantly greater than Loiek’s own.
“This is like my face speaking Mandarin and, in the background, I’m seeing the Kremlin and Moscow and talking about how great Russia and China are,” Loiek reported to Reuters. “That was creepy because I would never say these things in life.”
Loiek’s case indicates an increasing number of women on Chinese social media who, at first glance, appear to be Russian.
These women express their affection for China in fluent Chinese and claim that they are seeking to support Russia during the conflict by selling imports from their homeland.
Nevertheless, none of them are real. They are AI-generated by misappropriating clips of real women located online, often without their knowledge. According to experts, the videos the fake avatars produce are used to pitch products to single Chinese men.
The accounts established with Loiek’s image have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers and sold tens of thousands of dollars in products, including chocolates. A disclaimer in specific postings indicates that they may have been generated using artificial intelligence.
The Russia-China “no limits” partnership, established in 2022 when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing just days before Russia invaded Ukraine, is leveraged by avatars such as Loiek’s.
Jim Chai, the CEO of XMOV, a company specializing in developing advanced AI technology and not affiliated with Loiek’s predicament, asserts that the technology used to generate these images is “extremely prevalent in China.”
“For instance, to generate my 2D digital human, I must record a 30-minute video of myself and subsequently edit the footage.” Chai stated, “Of course, it appears to be quite authentic, and of course, the only adjustment required is the lip-sync if the language is altered.”
Loiek’s narrative illuminates the hazards of its potentially unethical or unlawful applications as powerful content creation and dissemination tools become ubiquitous worldwide. Artificial intelligence is a contentious issue.
Recent months have seen an increase in the prevalence of generative AI systems such as Chat GPT, which has raised concerns about the potential for AI to contribute to misinformation, false news, and copyrighted material.
China proposed establishing over 50 national and industry-wide standards by 2026 in its draft guidelines for standardizing the AI industry, released in January.
This month, the European Union’s AI Act, which implements stringent transparency requirements for high-risk AI systems, became effective, potentially establishing a global standard.
Nevertheless, Xin Dai, an associate professor at the Peking University Law School, asserts that regulation is attempting to keep pace with the rapid advancement of AI.
“We can only predict that with increasingly powerful tools for creating information, creating content and disseminating content will become available every next minute,” according to Dai.
“I think that the critical thing here is the volume is simply too large … not only in China but also in the general internet all over the place,” he said.
