Human Models Horrified to Discover Their Faces Are Being Used for AI Propaganda
"People will think I am involved in the coup."
Synthesia, a text-to-video AI company with a valuation of over one billion dollars, claims that its tech allows users to "create studio-quality videos with AI avatars" as easily as they can throw together a slide deck.
The company's clientele is a wild mix, ranging from media stalwarts like Reuters and global accounting giant Ernst & Young to authoritarian regimes — a reality that's come as a terrible surprise to the human models whose faces Synthesia's AI models are trained on.
As The Guardian reports, several human models who posed for Synthesia have been horrified to discover that their likenesses have been used in AI-powered propaganda clips generated by groups linked to authoritarian states like China, Russia, and Venezuela.
"I'm in shock, there are no words right now," Mark Torres, a creative director based in London who modeled for Synthesia, told The Guardian after viewing one of the clips for the first time. "I've been in the [creative] industry for over 20 years and I have never felt so violated and vulnerable. I don't want anyone viewing me like that."
"Just the fact that my image is out there, could be saying anything – promoting military rule in a country I did not know existed," Torres added. "People will think I am involved in the coup."
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