The Twitch streamer Kevin “Papaplatte” Teller is currently seen in the most outrageous situations in videos on TikTok. They use his face and voice, but they are not created by him, but by artificial intelligence.
What kind of TikTok videos are these? Currently, some German users of TikTok are flooded with many videos of the Twitch streamer Papaplatte in their feed. The content creator is seen in various situations, like falling down stairs or trying on a feminine anime outfit. A video in which he turns into a pickled cucumber has over 130,000 likes on TikTok.
In the videos, Papaplatte himself is not the star, but the artificial intelligence Sora from OpenAI. The second version was recently made available in a limited capacity and can generate very realistic videos within seconds with little instruction.
Currently, it can only be used with an invitation code and seems to be set up similarly to TikTok, except that all videos are AI-generated. Users can “provide” their face and voice, and others can then have videos created using a self-written prompt.
The trend of usage was originally triggered by American content creators. For example, YouTuber Jake Paul is seen in videos saying that he is gay. In other videos, the content creator seemingly shows how he puts on feminine clothing and does his makeup.
The Sora videos of Papaplatte are also uploaded by users on TikTok. There, they enjoy high popularity, with likes in the five-digit range depending on the video.
Dangers of AI Videos
What are the possible consequences? Besides the bothersome quantity of videos, there is a danger behind the advanced AI: the spread of misinformation through such videos. Alongside the rather funny AI works, there are also videos circulating online that, if perceived as real, could have consequences for the people shown.
AI-generated voices and faces of big content creators are already being misused, for example, for advertising. For instance, Twitch streamer Erik “Gronkh” Range warned his viewers in a YouTube video about a specific type of advertisement.
In it, the Twitch streamer was seen apparently promoting an app. His voice was mimicked using AI, and the footage was manipulated so that the individual elements matched and it seemed as if Gronkh was using the app himself.
Also, Twitch streamer Marcel “MontanaBlack” Eris was affected by such a situation: His face and voice were used for a perfume advertisement.
Currently, the videos from Sora are still marked with a watermark, making it relatively easy to identify that the videos are AI-generated content. However, if this watermark is removed or if someone does not know what the Sora inscription is about, the AI-generated content may be more difficult to recognize as such.
What else poses a danger? Twitch streamer Jasmin “Gnu” spoke about a significant problem two years ago: The sexualization of content creators on the internet without their consent.
Even back then, AI was used to place the faces of content creators on images of naked women’s bodies or even in porn. Such deepfakes could be created more easily with advancing AI and thus become an even bigger problem.
“Where are we headed?”
What do other content creators say about it? YouTuber “Ton Verändert” talks in one of his YouTube videos about the new trend and says: “I really thought for a brief, brief moment: ‘Brother, what is Papaplatte doing there?'” His For-You-Page is also full of AI videos about Papaplatte.
“Ton Verändert” himself uses AI for creating his thumbnails, but he says that making such videos reaches a new level. He further states that while AI-generated videos can still be recognized, for example, through small imperfections in the background, “it just looks real talk, really real” (Source: YouTube from minute 06:15).
Moreover, it seems that he is particularly concerned about the dwindling creativity of content creators:
Where are we headed if we only watch AI-generated videos? Where is the human? Where is the real creator?
– Ton Verändert on YouTube from minute 07:20
Deepfakes could also be used for something creative alongside all the dangers. This is evidenced by an advertisement from Kaufland for varieties from the beverage brand GÖNRGY. A deepfake of Twitch streamer MontanaBlack was used there to create an original advertisement: A supermarket advertises with a double of MontanaBlack – showing that the Twitch streamer could retire
