Why gay guys are falling for AI thirst traps - vox.com

Derek Lam, a social media personality with over 70,000 combined followers on TikTok and X, gained notoriety for his shirtless dance videos and athletic physique. Despite the adoration of his many fans, who frequently leave complimentary comments in multiple languages, Lam is not a real person. He is an AI-generated persona, one of an increasing number of synthetic influencers designed to capitalize on internet trends and potentially extract money from followers through exclusive content or scams.

What happened

Experts identified several red flags indicating that Derek Lam was artificial. Most notably, the character never speaks, and his videos are brief, lasting only seconds. A frame-by-frame analysis by Siwei Lyu, a professor of digital forensics at the University at Buffalo, revealed characteristic AI artifacts, including a distorted watch face, fingers of identical length, and fluctuating chest hair that appears and disappears between frames. Further investigation revealed a similar account, Vance Ford, which featured nearly identical movements, music, and choreography, suggesting both personas were generated from a shared motion source. These AI entities effectively mimic the behaviors of real influencers to solicit likes and money, often without the consent of the individuals whose likenesses may have been used to train the models. While followers like "Patrick," a pseudonym for a 33-year-old user, expressed surprise and vulnerability upon learning the truth, these incidents highlight a broader trend of synthetic media being used to exploit human desire. As deepfake technology becomes more accessible, it requires less data to train, allowing for the rapid creation of convincing fake personas that are increasingly difficult for the average user to distinguish from real human influencers.