Social media users can’t figure out whether the highly realistic woman in a video ad is real or AI-generated. The answer is she’s both.
On Monday, internet user @beckylitv posted a viral video on X (formerly known as Twitter) of a young woman giving a candid product pitch for a personal hygiene brand.
It’s terrible but I still think it’s wild that this can all be done with AI. Imagine in 6 months… pic.twitter.com/L1ycB3IkAk
— Beck 🎈 (@beckylitv) March 25, 2024
“So let me get this straight,” the woman says while casually sitting in her car.
“You guys are telling me that when you’re out of the house for hours, you’re comfortable walking around with all that stanky body that’s been building up on you all day?”
The highly convincing woman then goes on to promote the hygiene brand in an engaging and personal way in the video.
However, in her caption, X user @becklitv revealed that this woman was not entirely real in the video that has amassed over 1.3 million views.
“It’s terrible but I still think it’s wild that this can all be done with AI. Imagine in six months…” @becklitv writes.
Viewers on X were stunned by the revelation and could not believe that the shockingly real woman was AI-generated. But, the explanation is a bit more complicated than that.
The Woman is Both Real and AI-Generated
According to a report by the Daily Dot, the woman in the footage is actually real but the video of that woman was partially AI-generated by a service called Arcads.ai.
The woman in the footage is a real-life person who has allowed her appearance to be licensed and used in AI-generated videos — such as this one.
Daily Dot reports that Arcads.ai, which is run by a French company called FRESHR, allows customers to generate videos by scrolling through a catalog of pre-recorded content made by different creators in different environments, “each with its own particularities.”
“FRESHR offers it Customer the option of uploading a script… to the Platform in order to create a final video… which, on the basis of the Video Model chosen, integrates the script, in particular by making the lip-sync and cloning the voice with that of the Video Model Creator or another Creator,” the French company’s website reads.
According to Daily Dot, some X users discovered that the woman in the video has multiple Fiverr profiles where she goes by the name Ariel M. and offers User Generated Content (UGC), product reviews, and video ads.
In a further comment on X, @becklitv clarified how she made the highly realistic footage using AI and says that currently the new technology still involves a lot of human skill to make the woman so convincing.
“Just like with Midjourney or ChatGPT, you need to be skilled at prompts. This video looks real because I matched the script with the AI model,” @becklitv writes.
“I analyzed the model and then I added text based on her mannerisms. This will still involve a lot of human skill, don’t get ahead of yourselves.”
However, there is no telling how the technology could evolve and how easy it could become to implement in the coming months.
