Actors say their faces are being used in fake AI sex scenes to sell micro dramas
· Business Insider
Gregory Wallace, Yellowbelly, Yellowbelly
- Actors say micro drama apps manipulated their images to create misleading, sexual promos.
- The AI-generated ads showed sexual scenes that didn't appear in the actual shows.
- The actors said they were blindsided and fear the ads could hurt their reputations.
An ad for the micro drama "How to Tame a Silver Fox," an age-gap romance, opens with a shot of a woman, then cuts to two people having sex.
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The promo for the ReelShort show was a shock to Tess Dinerstein, the woman in the scene. The reason: There wasn't any sex or nudity in the show itself.
"It was really jarring," Dinerstein told Business Insider. Dinerstein said she worries that people won't take her seriously as an actor if they see the promo. She also worries about how her parents could react.
"I felt like it delegitimized the work I do," she said. "I'm so grateful to be an actor, but I don't take my clothes off. Nothing against people who do, but I don't."
Dinerstein has become a prominent actor in the world of micro dramas, also called verticals or mini dramas. These soapy series have short episodes — often one to two minutes — and are made for mobile viewing. They're on the rise in the US: Deloitte predicted that revenue made by micro drama apps would more than double this year to $7.8 billion, with the US accounting for nearly half of that.
The apps, many of which originated in Asia, are fighting tooth and nail for US market share. Industry insiders say the marketing costs to attract new users are sky-high, which incentivizes companies to make promos as eye-catching as possible.
"An app may boast of a show that makes $30 million, but $27 million of it will have gone to advertising," Thom Woodley, a longtime verticals producer, recently told Business Insider.
In the quest for new viewers, some apps are angering their actors — including Dinerstein — by creating misleading, sexualized promos to lure people to their shows. Three actors said when they complained to the apps, they were told the ads were made by third parties.
'Not everyone knows I didn't agree to do that'
Actor Faith Orta said she was "flabbergasted" to see an ad pop up on her TikTok feed that showed a man pulling off her top and grabbing her breast, which was blurred.
"In the real scene, he never even grabbed my breast," she said. "I'm very body positive, and I'm all about consent. When AI jumps in and shows the audience something I don't want to show, it takes away the power over my own body."
AI has made it easy to create fake videos that look real, and actors say these sexualized ads can have emotional, reputational, and financial consequences.
David Eves said he was caught off guard when someone sent him an ad for a vertical he was in, "Turn the Mafia's Virgin Wife On," that showed his likeness in a threesome. Eves said he never shot a threesome and wouldn't have consented to such a scene.
"Not everyone knows I didn't agree to do that," he said.