Reddit users have been paying for nude images of a fake, AI-generated woman, according to reports.
Photos of the ultra-realistic Claudia character, which was created using the artificial intelligence tool Stable Diffusion, began appearing across different Reddit forums a few months ago.
One image attracted hundreds of comments, with one user writing “you’re looking very pretty”, and another adding “holy crap you are beautiful”.
Some users appeared to spot the AI trickery, claiming that it looked too processed to be real.
“For those who aren’t aware, I’m going to kill your fantasy,” one user wrote. “This is literally an AI creation, if you’ve ever worked with AI image models and making your own long enough, you can 10000% tell. Sorry to ruin the surprise I guess.”
Creators of the Claudia AI claim to have already made around $100 by selling her nudes to Reddit users who appear to believe that she is a real person.
AI-generated images often struggle with creating realistic human hands
(Stable Diffusion)
“You could say this whole account is just a test to see if you can fool people with AI pictures,” the creators of Claudia told Rolling Stone magazine.
“You could compare it to the vtubers, they create their own characters and play as an entirely different person. We honestly didn’t think it would get this much traction.”
AI researchers said the photos of Claudia had tell-tale signs of being AI-generated, including strange background details and blemishes that appeared in different positions.
The Claudia character forms part of a new trend that has been made possible through the recent emergence of artificial intelligence diffusion models. The latest versions have made it possible to create photo-realistic depictions of people, both fictional and real.
Unlike deepfake porn that relies on AI tools to edit existing videos, diffusion models generate brand new images based on billions of images that they’ve been trained on.
The r/amIhot sub-reddit, where the image of Claudia first appeared, has since introduced verification for its members, which requires users to send a 10-15 second video clip as proof of identity.
