Meta and TikTok have served thousands of ads for apps that use AI to generate fake videos of people kissing, allowing users to upload photos of two people and let the AI convert them into a video of them kissing. kissing. The apps are marketed as tools that would allow you to “instantly kiss whoever you want” – no consent required.
Similar in concept to “AI nudifier” apps that produce non-consensual deepfake pornography, these AI kissing apps create believable videos of people doing something they haven’t done. And the ease with which they do it is a worrying pattern of deepfake images.
Although the ads are not sexually explicit like the deluge of AI-generated pornographic content that has engulfed social media platforms like Instagram, Reddit and YouTube, they can be just as dangerous, said Center executive Haley McNamara. national for sexual exploitation. Forbes.
“It doesn’t have to be explicit for there to be exploitation,” McNamara said. “If you have to cross boundaries to do something offline to someone without their consent, kiss them, take your clothes off, etc., then it also crosses boundaries to do it online.”
Meta displayed more than 2,500 ads for “AI kissing” apps on Instagram and Facebook, a Forbes review found. About 1,000 are currently active. TikTok served around 1,000 ads to millions of users in European countries, according to its ad library. (TikTok’s ad library does not include ads served to its U.S.-based users.) Most of these ads depict celebrities like Scarlett Johansson, Emma Watson and Gal Gadot kissing. Others show videos of random people kissing, touting that AI could let you “kiss your ex” and “kiss your crush.” It is unclear whether the people in the videos are real or AI-generated. Johansson, Watson and Gadot did not respond to requests. for comment.
Meta also promotes “AI hugging” apps, ads for which AI-generated videos show children hugging cartoon characters like Dora the Explorer, Mickey Mouse and Tom and Jerry. Some, like a video showing a young girl hugging an older man, promise parents that AI-powered apps could allow their children to “hug grandparents they never had.” never met.” The social media giant ran around 1,200 ads for AI-enabled apps, a Forbes search found. More than 300 are still alive.
“This trend normalizes exploitative deepfakes and treats non-consensual participation in intimate or sexualized images as a joke.”
AI-generated videos showing people kissing and hugging are already circulating on social media. A video showing Taylor Swift hugging Kim Jong Un has been viewed around 30 million times on Instagram. In late December, a deepfake video of Elon Musk and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni kissing went viral on X.
Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts said Forbes that these “AI kissing” ads do not violate company policies. Although nudity, sexually explicit and sexually suggestive content are against Meta’s advertising standards and Meta does not allow ads that “display, advocate or coordinate sexual acts with non-consenting parties”, kissing videos and Hugs are allowed.
After being contacted by Forbes, TikTok removed the ads for violating its policies. The video-sharing platform requires advertisers to obtain consent from public or private figures depicted in their ads, even if the ads are generated by AI, TikTok spokeswoman Ariane de Selliers said. Forbes.
The companies behind these video generators appear to be based outside the United States, in countries like the United Arab Emirates, Italy and China, according to their websites. The apps are available for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store and already have millions of downloads. The “AI kissing” feature is part of a broader suite of AI-powered photo editing features in apps, such as editing old photos, turning still images into videos, and predicting what what two people’s future babies would look like. Apple and Google did not respond to requests for comment.
“It was incredibly frightening to encounter.”
The diffusion of AI kissing applications, stimulated by the virality of social media, illustrates a worrying generalization of deepfakes in the era of generative AI. Using these seemingly innocuous apps could open the door to tools that can create more graphic images like deepfake pornography and other types of image-based sexual abuse, McNamara said. “It’s just a real Pandora’s box,” she said.
“This trend normalizes exploitative deepfakes and treats non-consensual participation in intimate or sexualized images as a joke,” she said. “It’s the kind of thing that’s easy to trivialize when thinking about others, but then again, if you think of someone in your own sphere who makes images like this of yourself, someone you wouldn’t want to have images of, I think everyone can recognize that that’s a violation.
This is particularly concerning as illegal AI-generated child sexual abuse content (CSAM) sees an unprecedented rise. Over the past two years, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has received more than 7,000 reports of child exploitation material linked to generative AI. In one case, a pedophile allegedly filmed children at Disneyland and used the popular AI tool Stable Diffusion to produce thousands of illegal images of them. And thanks to unlimited access to AI image generators, teenage high school students have repeatedly created fake nude images of their underage classmates, some resulting in criminal charges. Meta has also struggled to control ads for such AI-“harming” sites, one of which saw 90% of its traffic come from Instagram and Facebook, according to the Faked Up newsletter.
People who have encountered AI kissing ads while browsing social media say they find them disturbing. In December, Alice Siregar began seeing an increase in ads for AI kissing apps on TikTok. An AI analyst at a technology consulting firm herself, she was dismayed to see the technology used in a “deeply unethical” way.
“It was incredibly scary to meet,” she said.
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