This isn’t Kendall Jenner: People are freaking out over Meta’s ‘creepy’ AI bot ‘Billie’
This Jenner-ative AI is frighteningly good.
Our sci-fi-inspired fears of artificial intelligence replicating us may not be unfounded: Meta set off alarm bells after introducing an AI chatbot named Billie that resembled Kendall Jenner so closely, they thought it was the model herself.
A video introducing the creepy Kardashian doppelganger is currently eliciting screams across the web.
“Hey guys it’s Billie,” greets the Jenner facsimile in the clip, which was posted to the AI’s Instagram page @yoursisbillie, where it currently boasts over 118,000 followers.
Billie bills herself on Instagram “like having an older sister you can talk to, but who can’t steal your clothes.”
In the clip, the “Keeping” — or perhaps creeping — “Up With The Kardashian” star’s digital lookalike tells viewers: “I just want to introduce myself. I am here to chat whenever you want.
“Message me for any advice,” adds Billie, who captures both Jenner’s look and valley girl mannerisms and accent to tee. “I am ready to talk and I hope to talk to you soon.”
The eerily-naturalistic chatbot then signs off by blowing a kiss to the camera.
Viewers seemed to find her more dystopian than charming. “This is honestly scary,” fretted one commenter, while another wrote, “I don’t like this, I don’t like where the world is heading, I’m not gonna support this.”
One disillusioned viewer wrote, “That is so creepy… I hope it’s actually Kendall just saying she’s Billie and not an AI-generated video because that’s freaky as hell.”
The hyperrealistic Jenner-ative AI is part of a recent initiative by Meta — which owns WhatsApp and Instagram — in which they’re paying celebrities millions of dollars for their likenesses so they can create AI assistants to connect to their audience.
In accordance, these bots answer queries and engage the user in naturalistic, real-time conversations using responses based on their celeb’s personality.
Billie is just one member of the AI assistant roster, which includes Paris Hilton as a “forensic specialist who solves crimes,” Tom Brady as Bru, the wise-cracking “sports debater,” Dwayne The Rock Johnson as a trainer, and Snoop Dogg as a red cape-wearing “Dungeon Master” who encourages the user to “get medieval.”
Each AI-pproximation is so hyperrealistic that they make older AI models look like the celebrity statues at the notorious Krakow Wax Museum.
“Advances in AI allow us to create different AI personas to help us get different things done,” Zuckerberg told developers while announcing the campaign at the annual Connect conference in Menlo Park, Calif. last week.
“This isn’t just going to be about answering queries. This is about entertainment and about helping you do things to connect with the people around you.”
Meta’s paying celebs a pretty penny for their likeness: Each of the celebs reportedly received upwards of $1 million for their services with one unnamed creator getting paid $5 million for just six hours of studio time, according to The Information.
Unfortunately, in the past, some celebrities have been artificially replicated sans granting permission to hawk products, giving rise to fears of cybernetic character assassinations.
Earlier this month, Tom Hanks, 67, took to Instagram to warn followers that he was not involved in a promotional video for a dental plan that he says features an AI-generated version of himself.
“Beware!!” Hanks wrote in the caption of a photo of his mysterious facsimile.“There’s a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me. I have nothing to do with it.”
