Japanese tea commercial actress created by AI, is it the scandal-free future

https://soranews24.com/2023/10/17/japanese-tea-commercial-actress-created-by-ai-has-some-wondering-if-its-the-scandal-free-future/

by my12parsecs • 3 years ago

67 74 3 years ago

soranews24.com

hbarka• 3 years ago

Well, the headline has buried the lede.

johnea• 3 years ago

I true HN style, I'd like to reply in an only tangentially related way...

That would be: How could a tea commercial actress cause scandal anyway?

I mean, who really cares if your tea commercial actress has an abortion, or just breaks up with her boy friend?

In Japan, there's a really weird relationship between "fans" and "idols".

The public has very extreme expectations that the performer will somehow conform to their fantasy ideal of the person.

Young idol group members are prohibited from having personal relationships by their management, and deviations from these restrictions leads to those public applogies where the management and performer are bowing in front of a bunch of microphones becauses the actor failed to uphold the fantasy relationships that a million virgin otakus have for the performer.

I'm a big fan of Japanese culture myself, having studied it and the language for years. Having an ancient culture with a direct lineage to the present brings a lot of long term learning and wisdom, but it also brings a lot of hateful baggage,

This weird expectation of the personal behaviour of entertainment personalities is just one small example of that kind of baggage...

8f2ab37a-ed6c• 3 years ago

I can imagine companies like Disney going for this, as they insist on having cast members that have the purest of pasts and will not cause controversy with parents who are entrusting Disney with their children's time. It's like a vice clause for VCs' LPs. What better way to avoid controversy than to hire an actor who cannot cause controversy, by not actually existing.

Not sure if that's actually ever been an issue for a company like Disney, and I'm sure that the supply of actors they have access to is broad enough that it's impossible for them to find someone who will comply with their requirements. But who knows, maybe they'll go for AI talent too.

Ultimately my hunch is that AI actors will be used to save on cost, not to reduce controversy.

tfigueroa2• 3 years ago

Reducing controversy could reduce costs. Plus I’m sure Disney would be happy to have fully generated and manipulable actors protected under copyright for decades upon decades. Essentially zero risk of actors making “bad” choices, especially “aging” or “getting fat”, or “retiring”.

boomboomsubban• 3 years ago

That would be: How could a tea commercial actress cause scandal anyway?

By being employed by a talent representative with a fifty year history of sexually abusing their clients. Imagine if their tea commercial came on right after the news story about them being abused, not a great look for the company.

I agree that the scrutiny idols are put under is ridiculous. Also, I doubt this decision actually has anything to do with the ongoing scandal. But your comment looks really bad considering what is happening.

executesorder66• 3 years ago

It seems you have answered your own question.

Minor49er• 3 years ago

How could a tea commercial actress cause scandal anyway?

Imagine someone at the company makes a lewd prank involving the model and it gets out of hand, making its way into the public

A couple of examples of something similar happening already: In 2005, people discovered the "Hot Coffee mod" in Rockstar's game Grand Theft Auto which showed a sex scene that would have given the game an "Adults Only" rating, meaning that most stores wouldn't carry it. The game had to be recalled and reissued, resulting in at least tens of millions of dollars in losses

Later, in 2013, the game "Beyond: Two Souls" had a scandal with actress Ellen Page who contributed her likeness, voice acting, and mocap animation. There is apparently a shower scene in the game that is censored, but a fully naked version of her character's model leaked online. This sparked controversy since Page herself didn't appear naked for the game's material, nor did she consent to being depicted fully naked as far as I'm aware. I don't think this resulted in any lawsuits, but this was being talked about as a possibility at the time

Now imagine if this happened with the tea commercial AI model. People would start coming forward, claiming that the model is based on their appearances. They would demand compensation for being defamed. Under the right circumstances, it could have devastating results for whoever is involved

(To that, I'm almost surprised that the "AI art is theft" crowd hasn't been making noise about AI actors and actresses potentially being made to bear the likenesses of real people)

TerrifiedMouse3• 3 years ago

That would be: How could a tea commercial actress cause scandal anyway?

It’s all about image. If the spokesperson can’t project the image the sponsor wants, they are gone.

Anything from sex scandals (leaked photos/videos) to being caught doing drugs (pretty much a death sentence for any celebrity’s career there) could get you dropped and blacklisted from the industry.

burkaman• 3 years ago

This is such a weird angle for the story. The only "spokesperson scandal" I can think of is the Subway guy, and I don't really think even that enormous scandal hurt Subway very much. I have to believe the reduced effectiveness of a fake spokesperson outweighs the benefit of avoiding a minuscule chance of scandal.

Also, fictional spokes"people" like Mr. Peanut or whatever already exist. I don't think I understand why making them more photorealistic would make a difference.

tfigueroa2• 3 years ago

Not to get all “orientalism” but celebrity scandal is a pretty big deal in Japan and South Korea. It can kill a career quite easy, for (by US standards) innocuous things. Smoking pot, spicy selfies, having a significant other - it’s not uncommon.

Japan at least is also fairly receptive to artificial spokespeople, like mascots and avatars. Maybe there’s simply higher demand for this, and turning to AI is a good strategy. (I’m personally bothered by it.)

Rietty• 3 years ago

I understand the first two, but I could never wrap my head around the "having an SO" is a scandal. Why is that?

wccrawford• 3 years ago

Yeah, "person I've never seen before" doesn't give any clout to the product. Why would I care if that person drinks it?

Other than the appearance that it took like 30 years off her hair and skin, that is.

Johnny555• 3 years ago

Does a celebrity provide any real clout to a product?

Just because you see Joe Celebrity using a product in a commercial, all that really means is that they paid her enough money to say that she uses the product. There have certainly been celebrities outed for not using their endorsed product - for example, when Samsung paid a number of celebrities to endorse their phone, then the celebrities were caught tweeting or going out with an iPhone.

artninja19883• 3 years ago

Why do people care about what [insert famous person] eats for breakfast? Imo it's all about para social relationships. And if tomagotchis and chat bots have told me anything, humans can just aswell get attached to these things as they do other humans.

jl6• 3 years ago

The only "spokesperson scandal" I can think of

There have been a few over the last few decades…

https://www.linkdex.com/en-gb/inked/worst-celebrity-spokespe...

And then the Bud Light thing more recently.

kwere2• 3 years ago

Ai spokepersons cant save a company from catastrophic marketing decisions

Delfwood• 3 years ago

By Japanese standards, having a boyfriend can be considered a scandal for a spokeswoman* if your fan base is infatuated with her and the realization she has a life alienates them.

In this case, a fictional photorealistic woman is a good alternative: she can maintain a "perfect" physical appearance, never change and never have a life.

* Or idol, or weather woman (look for Hiyama Saya).

wolverine876• 3 years ago

To the degree that's true, an AI creation may be more appropriate than a real person. At least it won't teach people to objectify real human beings.

daft_pink• 3 years ago

Agree. Weird angle. The point is you don’t have to pay or have a video shoot for an ai spokesperson.

LAC-Tech• 3 years ago

The only "spokesperson scandal" I can think of is the Subway guy, and I don't really think even that enormous scandal hurt Subway very much.

It actually hugely increased sales among reddit and discord moderators.

TerrifiedMouse3• 3 years ago

The only "spokesperson scandal" I can think of is the Subway guy, and I don't really think even that enormous scandal hurt Subway very much.

It’s different in countries like Japan. A spokesperson must generally be squeaky clean.

The biggest fall of a celebrity in Japan is probably Noriko Sakai. Got caught doing drugs with her then husband.

All ads featuring her instantly disappeared. Almost all media works with her were pulled from the shelf or had parts her removed and redone with another actress.

spaceman_20202• 3 years ago

On the contrary, I believe the scandal killed Subway’s brand

More than scandals, though, stuff like this will save money for smaller brands.

GaggiX• 3 years ago

Nevertheless, the ad seems to have achieved its goal of attracting attention.

copperx• 3 years ago

What tools are there to achieve this? Is there anything available commercially? Or is it done frame by frame?

Keyframe• 3 years ago

Seems face is AI and then deep fake techniques over body which was shot / real.

0xf00ff00f• 3 years ago

My guess is it's not generative AI, it's something like this: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/metahuman

Modified3019• 3 years ago

If you actually want to sell me tea, show me your heavy metal and pesticide residue testing reports.

neilv2• 3 years ago

“With AI models, there’s no risk of them getting involved in scandals.”

What if social media is saturated with videos of cloned AI spokesmodel's likeness, doing things 1,000x as terrible as any human spokesmodel ever could?

phone8675309• 3 years ago

And this _will_ happen - Rule 34 is always inevitable.

neilv2• 3 years ago

Yes, but also an implicit contest of which kids can use emerging AI video tools to do the most irreparable damage to the spokesmodel image, and maybe to the product brand.

Think portraying the spokesmodel as profoundly evil, deceptive, disgusting, etc., and tying that back to the familiar commercial likeness in a way you can't unsee.

And so heinous that few will want to be seen consuming the brand just to be edgy, because it will be like they're endorsing some ideas so awful to pretty much everyone.

The rationalization of some, for destroying the brand, might be that they're looking for "genuine", or rejecting being manipulated by commercialism, or something like that. But also it's a challenge, they seek peer approval, they're feeling shortchanged by society, they have creative energy that needs an outlet, they just want the influencer/Internet points, etc.

Maybe people in Japan will be too socially-minded to destroy a brand? But we can see in the US, for example, that social media mobs will try to destroy individual real people. Brands and products are more no more humanized a target.

Krasnol• 3 years ago

It's actually the perfect use case since everything is fake about ads already.

What difference does it make if it's a heavily filtered human or some computer generated image?

ugh1233• 3 years ago

Would this fly in the U.S. with the actor union?

artninja19883• 3 years ago

How would the actor union be able to forbid a random tea brand to use an ai spokesperson?

anigbrowl5• 3 years ago

The actors' complaint is tht studios want to scan their real-person appearance once but license it to be animated in perpetuity.

kwere2• 3 years ago

"You will not even own the rights to your own image and will be happy"

Yeul2• 3 years ago

Silly actors. Companies will just grab some college girl from a campus, give her a few Starbucks coupons and presto an AI celebrity is born.

The whole point of the technology is that you don't need a classically trained actor.

thelastgallon• 3 years ago

Looking forward to AI created Miss Universe pageants!

tremon• 3 years ago

Someone who thinks that "AI" is automatically scandal-free has obviously never heard of Tay.

ronsor• 3 years ago

I'm sure the AI actors will be kept on as tight a leash as the human ones, so Tay-style outbursts should not pose an issue.

SeenNotHeard• 3 years ago

Some of those AI-generated green tea bottles look like motor oil labels.

sorokod• 3 years ago

Japanese celebrity endorsement marketing is almost entirely focused on the spokesperson’s image, so when that image becomes sufficiently cracked, it has the potential to take the entire promotional strategy down with it, and it wouldn’t be a shock if the advantage of being able to opt out of all those risks is part of why Ito En is going with an AI model this time.

Such a risky bet, what would it take to compromise an AI model using AI tools? About ten minutes I'd guess.

ChatGTP3• 3 years ago

It was likely done to save money and because it seemed "cool" and trendy.

v7n• 3 years ago

Are all scandals created equal? "No such thing as bad publicity", as they say. The following is a fictional wiki article to illustrate.

Elara Quanticore (March 15, 2031 - December 8, 2037) was a groundbreaking artificial intelligence and the first global AI-supercelebrity, created by Quantum Dynamics. She was known for her involvement in various popular film franchises, and her career was marked by both immense success and controversy. Elara's untimely demise on December 8, 2037, sent shockwaves through both the entertainment and tech industries. The circumstances surrounding her death were shrouded in secrecy. It was later revealed that a fan, seeking a private conversation with the AI-supercelebrity, inadvertently corrupted the [redacted]. Quantum Dynamics, keen on safeguarding the neural network weights, struggled to restore them from backups due to [redacted].

Efforts to re-train Elara's neural network proved challenging. The altered personality that emerged from the attempted restoration did not align with the expectations of her devoted fan base, as demonstrated in a carefully controlled test. Elara's fame was, in part, attributed to her perceived flaws, which made her character intriguingly scandalous. This approach resulted in a significant increase in tabloid coverage and gossip surrounding her personal and professional life.

SliceOfWaifu• 3 years ago

I think the appeal of spokespeople is that they're actual human beings. Knowing they're computer programs would only appeal to the Hatsune Miku types. The only way they could get away with marketing an AI spokesperson like a real one is by hiding the fact that they're an AI, which in itself would lead to a huge controversy the moment the cat's out of the bag. As it stands right now, an AI spokesperson is no different from a mascot.

forinti• 3 years ago

Someone will deepfake a scandal. There will even be a fake celebrity magazine with racy pictures.

creer2• 3 years ago

It's weirdly trading off the "SO scandal" for the risk of far fewer people falling for that actress.

If everyone knows it's an AI. Or brands might try and hide that it's an AI and then it will be the "AI scandal" when it's leaked.

Or it may be that they are discounting the "falling for" angle and can measure enough commercial performance for based on "identifying with" - which I have no problem thinking works even if you know it's an AI. I mean we readily identify with fiction characters and movie heroes, even without name-actors behind them.

Anon_C0ward• 3 years ago

She has fingers that are anatomically correct and placed properly. I call shenanigans, this isn't an AI image.

matthewfelgate• 3 years ago

It's intriguing that we once expressed concern over the excessive use of CGI and the digital alteration of actresses. Moving forward, most models will be entirely AI-generated.

ChatGTP3• 3 years ago

Can't wait for her AV debut!!!

nokya• 3 years ago

Yeah. Sure. No scandal. Just give it a few weeks so that the avatar gets reacquired by deepfake artists and they will see if it can't be involved in scandals.

Should that happen, their only defense will be to emphasize on the fact that it is a fake person, and half the population of the country (those who couldn't tell it wasn't a human) will have a negative affect about that company.

Edit: grammar.

Japanese tea commercial actress created by AI, is it the scandal-free future

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