Ads for apps that use AI to create fake videos of people kissing whoever they love are flooding social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
from Rashi ShrivastavaForbes Staff
Mme and TikTok have run thousands of ads for apps that use AI to generate fake videos of people kissing, allowing users to upload photos of any two people and let the AI convert them into a video of them kissing. Apps are being marketed as tools that will let you “kiss whoever you want” instantly — no consent required.
Similar in concept to nudifier AI apps that produce non-consensual fake porn, 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 disturbing habituation of fake images.
While the ads aren’t as sexually explicit as 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 Haley McNamara, an executive at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. . Forbes.
“It doesn’t have to be obvious to be exploitative,” McNamara said. “If it’s crossing the line to do something offline to someone without their consent, kissing, undressing, etc., then it’s also crossing the line to do it online.”
Meta has run over 2,500 ads for AI kissing apps on Instagram and Facebook. Forbes review found. About 1,000 are currently active. TikTok has served about 1,000 ads to millions of users in European countries, according to its ad library. (TikTok’s ad library does not include ads shown to its US-based users) Most of these ads depict celebrities like Scarlett Johansson, Emma Watson and Gal Gadot kissing each other. Others show videos of random people kissing, claiming AI can let you “kiss your ex” and “kiss your crush.” It is unclear whether the people in the video are real or created by AI. Johansson, Watson and Gadot did not respond to requests for comment.
Meta is also promoting “AI hug” apps, ads for which feature AI-generated videos of children hugging cartoon characters like Dora the Explorer, Mickey Mouse and Tom and Jerry. Some, like a video showing a young girl hugging an elderly man, promise parents that AI-powered apps could let their kids “hug grandparents they’ve never met.” The social media giant has run nearly 1,200 app ads to embrace AI, a Forbes search found. Over 300 are still alive.
“This trend is normalizing exploitative “deepfakes” and taking non-consensual participation in intimate or sexual images as a joke.”
AI-generated videos of people kissing and hugging are already making the rounds on social media. A video depicting Taylor Swift hugging Kim Jong Un has nearly 30 million views on Instagram. In late December, a “deepfake” video of Elon Musk and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni kissing went viral on X.
said Meta spokesman Daniel Roberts Forbes that these “AI kiss” ads do not violate company policies. While nudity, sexually explicit and sexually suggestive content are against Meta’s advertising standards, and Meta does not allow ads that “show, advocate, or coordinate sexual acts with non-consenting parties,” kissing and hugging videos are allowed.
After being contacted by Forbes, TikTok removed ads for violating its policies. The video-sharing platform requires advertisers to obtain consent from public or private figures represented in their ads, even if the ads are generated by AI, TikTok spokeswoman Ariane de Selliers said. Forbes.
According to their websites, the companies behind these video generators appear to be located outside the United States in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Italy, and China. The apps are available for free on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store and already have millions of downloads. The AI Kiss feature is part of a wider set of AI-based photo editing capabilities across apps, such as touching up old photos, turning still images into videos and predicting how two people’s future babies appear. Apple and Google did not respond to requests for comment.
“That was too creepy to meet.”
The proliferation of AI kissing apps, fueled by social media virality, illustrates a disturbing integration of deep fakery into the age of generative AI. Using these seemingly harmless apps can open the door to tools that can create more graphic images like fake pornography and other types of image-based sexual abuse, McNamara said. “It’s just an absolute Pandora’s box,” she said.
“This trend is normalizing exploitative deepfakes and taking non-consensual participation in intimate or sexual images as a joke,” she said. “It’s the kind of thing that’s easy to trivialize when you think about other people, but then again, if you think about someone in your sphere who makes images like that of themselves, someone who you wouldn’t want to have images of, I think everybody can understand that this is a violation.”
This is particularly concerning when illegal AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is on an unprecedented rise. Over the past two years, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has received over 7,000 reports of AI-related child exploitation material. 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 with unlimited access to AI image generators, teenage high school students have in many cases created fake nude images of their underage classmates, some resulting in criminal charges. Meta has also struggled to control advertising for such AI “nudifying” sites, one of which saw 90 percent of its traffic come from Instagram and Facebook, according to the Faked Up newsletter.
People who have come across AI kiss ads while scrolling through 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 herself at a technology consulting firm, she was shocked to see the technology being used in a “deeply unethical” way.
“It was really creepy to meet,” she said.
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