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A new wave of AI-generated influencers is taking over Instagram, built on content stolen from real porn stars and models without their consent. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta does not appear to be taking action against the scam dubbed “AI pimping.”

Wired reports that a growing industry of “AI pimping” is flooding social media with deepfake influencers, taking over platforms like Instagram with artificially generated profiles. These AI influencers are often trained on stolen photos and videos from real porn stars and Instagram models. Realistic AI-generated faces are then swapped onto the bodies of humans to create fake but convincing new content.

The practice has exploded in scale in recent months, making it clear that Mark Zuckerbeg’s Instagram is either unable or unwilling to stop the deluge of AI-generated profiles. Over 1,000 such accounts were reviewed in an investigation, with 10 percent featuring deepfake videos that stole the appearance of real women. Some of these accounts self-identify as AI-generated “virtual models,” while others provide no disclosure.

Porn stars say they are now directly competing with, and losing income to, the AI impersonators. Adult actress Elaina St James said her Instagram reach and views have plummeted as the number of AI accounts has surged. “It’s because I’m competing with something that’s unnatural,” she said.

Creating these fake profiles is easier than ever thanks to a plethora of easily accessible AI tools and “how-to” guides being sold online. For $200 or less, anyone can buy detailed video courses on “AI pimping.” The guides recommend using various apps to generate realistic faces, bodies, and personas. Some of the apps have been available on Apple and Google’s app stores. There are even “one-stop-shop” websites that streamline the whole process of spinning up AI influencers.

The people behind the accounts, mostly men, then use them to funnel followers to pay-per-view porn sites, subscription services, and “dating” chat services. Step-by-step strategies are taught for luring lonely men to spend more and more money communicating with the AI models.

Some of the “AI pimps” openly brag about how lucrative the illicit cottage industry can be. “Professor EP,” the creator of one popular how-to guide, claims to have made over $1 million in less than 6 months from his AI influencer “Emily Pellegrini.” EP brazenly promotes deepfake technology in his course while maintaining a thin veneer of plausible deniability.

Instagram’s drive for engagement and ad revenue seems to disincentivize a real crackdown, according to researchers. “Instagram can sell this as traffic,” said Alexios Mantzarlis of Cornell Tech. “It can sell ads against this. So, is there a future where actual, real human accounts are almost like an elite, smaller percentage of Instagram? I think yes.”

St James concurs: “If all of a sudden they got rid of all the bots, the dead accounts, the fake accounts, the imposter accounts, what happens to their advertising?”

Read more at Wired here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.