[HN Gopher] OnlyFans models are using AI impersonators to keep u...
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OnlyFans models are using AI impersonators to keep up with their
DMs
Author : impish9208
Score : 48 points
Date : 2024-12-11 17:23 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| i wonder how they get around the heavy censorship that most
| flagship LLM use. I was assuming that they were outsourcing to
| lower-wage countries
| logicchains wrote:
| Maybe they're using Gemini; it's possible to disable censorship
| in Gemini, which combined with a custom base prompt can get the
| model to say almost anything.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| I don't want to link to the thread because the author didn't
| seem to want to, but someone in another thread said Llama 3
| with a few-shot prompting to get the model to respond, using
| their actual DMs with fans.
| evan_ wrote:
| YouTube provides its creators LLM-generated replies right in the
| interface, apparently trained on some of the creator's actual
| replies:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26QHXElgrl8
|
| If you keep watching there's another feature that actually
| generates video ideas, scripts, and even thumbnails for video
| creators.
|
| Seems really grim- what is the actual good-faith rationale for
| using this feature? It seems like the only use case is to trick
| people into thinking they're having a real interaction.
| mrbungie wrote:
| Good-faith rationale: None. Rationale: More growth for less
| effort, even if there is no soul.
|
| Fitting for our times.
| janice1999 wrote:
| > It seems like the only use case is to trick people into
| thinking they're having a real interaction.
|
| It's easy to rationalise a time saving measure I guess. I feel
| I'm unauthentic when I use auto-generated response suggestions
| in Outlook. But, like OnlyFans, it's 'just business'. Perhaps
| I'm overthinking it. How genuine and heartfelt can OnlyFans
| responses be? Probably as much as my response to a budget
| approval.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > to trick people
|
| "Artificial Intelligence" -> noun artifice: ruse, clever trick,
| guile, deception, cunning, a skillful or artful contrivance
| deadbabe wrote:
| On OnlyFans you get so many messages there's no hope of
| replying to all of them manually. So it's either reply to
| basically no one, or use automated methods.
| Karellen wrote:
| Worth noting that - mostly - punters weren't having real
| interactions with the models anyway. As the article points out,
| they'd previously reported (and I think HN had linked to the
| story) that a large number of models had been outsourcing their
| DM interactions to a rotating cadre of gig-workers already. And
| as the gig workers wouldn't be able to keep track of the full
| chat history between each punter and "the model", the
| conversations could sometimes feel off, or have long-term
| inconsistencies.
|
| I guess LLM hallucinations will just give a slightly different
| flavour of unreal interactions.
| xethos wrote:
| IIRC (from mobile), it was a different article from Wired
| that corroborated this, with a surprising disagreement (from
| what you mentioned) being that the gig-workers would keep
| notes that are attached and shared. The notes are per-...
| random? I suppose they'd be called? The gig-worker's customer
| is the streamer (or agency) that pays them, so I don't have a
| better name for the hoarde of people they're meant to be
| chatting with
|
| Though I don't doubt that less careful (or less well-paid)
| gig-chatters exist and can have a slightly different feel
| when handing off a random at shift-change
| SirMaster wrote:
| I'm OK with it as long as it would be labeled as such...
|
| I think users need to demand that if it's AI generated that
| it's labeled as such.
| immibis wrote:
| That is the business model of most media.
| evan_ wrote:
| I guess so, to a point. Jimmy Kimmel wants you to feel like
| you're a part of a community because you watch his show and
| get all of his inside jokes, but he's not sending you fake
| text messages pretending to be your close personal friend.
| Seems different to me!
| derefr wrote:
| > what is the actual good-faith rationale for using this
| feature
|
| So, responding to viewers increases engagement, and thereby a
| channel's virality.
|
| And one human can only do so much of that. So eventually, you
| hit a _marketing scalability bottleneck_ -- you get more
| comments than you can read, and the people who don 't feel
| engaged with, are more likely to churn from your viewership, so
| your viewership growth starts to decelerate.
|
| Large media companies + MCNs previously solved this bottleneck,
| by hiring paid human community managers to scale responding-to-
| comments.
|
| But individual creators bootstrapping their growth, had no good
| solution to this (besides joining an MCN), because the too-
| many-comments threshold comes long before they make enough
| revenue to afford to hire their own community managers.
|
| This creates a pay-to-win model where companies who already
| have capital from other ventures can afford to circumvent this
| bottleneck and so get big on YouTube, in a way that individual
| creators cannot.
|
| And YouTube doesn't like that; those big companies aren't
| _beholden_ to YouTube in the way that creators that think of
| themselves fundamentally as "YouTube content creators" are.
| (Or, to say that in a nicer way: YouTube wants to _democratize_
| content creation, ensuring that there 's a way for small
| bootstrapped content-creators to "make it.")
|
| AI comment responding is a substitute good for the paid human
| community managers who already perform this function for large
| media companies / MCNs / etc. It serves to allow these
| independent bootstrapped content-creators to overcome the
| responses-to-comments marketing bottleneck for much lower cost.
|
| This doesn't do anything good for the _people who post
| comments_ , of course; but it _does_ work to ensure a healthy
| ecosystem of independent bootstrapped content creators, rather
| than an oligopoly of media companies -- which _is_ something
| that viewers want _from_ YouTube.
|
| (An analogy might be to level-1 CSRs in a call center: as a
| _complainant_ , they just get in your way; but they solve a
| _customer-service scalability bottleneck_ for the company,
| which thereby allows the company to grow past the point where
| it would otherwise stop being able to handle support at all due
| to the increasing flood of "nonsense" complaints.)
|
| > It seems like the only use case is to trick people into
| thinking they're having a real interaction.
|
| Yes, it is, but that's going to happen whether or not there's a
| built-in feature to do it. That ship has sailed literally
| centuries ago -- ever heard of writing to a famous
| author/actor/etc, and getting a hand-written response,
| seemingly from the famous person themselves, but actually from
| their agent and just _signed_ by the famous person?
| beoberha wrote:
| Someone in the "side projects making $500+ per month" thread
| yesterday said they have a business doing this
| nubinetwork wrote:
| Possibly related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38491293
| booleandilemma wrote:
| This guy specifically
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42376682
| ysofunny wrote:
| eventually, other AI bots will be the _only fans_ left
|
| a trully automatic economy
| mysterydip wrote:
| future money laundering scheme? at some point it wouldn't be
| much different than the computers that talk to each other in
| millisecond bursts all day buying and selling stocks
| thr0waway001 wrote:
| That's hilarious.
| kmnc wrote:
| The models themselves are going to be replaced by those same AI
| Impersonators. Onlyfans has to be the most predatory service I
| have ever used. You are pretty much signing up to be a target of
| scammers, whether they be some kids in the Philippines sitting
| with 20 phones, or AI bots, it has become incredibly obvious that
| every creator uses them. They all employ the same tactic of
| seeing how much you are willing to pay and then increasingly
| offering you more and more expensive content. A few years ago you
| could have some real conversations but now it is just glorified
| spam. Even if a creator wasn't using these tactics, the water has
| been so muddied that you just assume it's all fake now.
| devjab wrote:
| I hope I don't come off as offensive asking this, but is there
| really that much of a difference? I'm not a fan of services which
| prey on peoples loneliness, but isn't the defining feature or
| these para-social relationship platforms that they are all make-
| belief? Maybe I'm wrong, but it's very hard for me to imagine
| that you could form any sort of relationship with the thousands
| of lonely people who pay you money to notice them. Hell, they
| must have some impressive note taking strategies to remember it
| all. An AI might end up being more engaging and personal.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| If you willingly pay money to talk to AI slop that's one thing,
| but if you're sold access to a person then that's what you
| should get. You're right that they're both empty experiences,
| but one is an erosion of consumer rights and the other is just
| stupid.
| konart wrote:
| >note taking strategies to remember it all.
|
| They don't do this at all. I know a guy who worked as a cam-
| girl manager for some time. His job was to communicate in her
| place with 4-6 people at the same time (via text of course)
| while the model "acts" on the screen.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| And pretty soon, we'll be able to get rid of the model acting
| on the screen as well. I'd say in about 10 years the entire
| operation will be automated by AI. Probably less than 10 if
| things keep developing at this breakneck pace.
|
| (At least, that will be true for run of the mill cam girls.
| Obviously certain other types of influencers may be more
| difficult to emulate via AI.)
| vorpalhex wrote:
| AI only solutions will be the cheap ones. Premium services
| will continue to be real people.
| joquarky wrote:
| This whole thing reminds me of ractors in The Diamond Age
| uncletaco wrote:
| AI solutions will work for the type of person who consumes
| free porn but will likely fall flat for paying customers.
| ryandvm wrote:
| I cannot figure out if vast multitudes of incels carrying
| on relationships with AI sexbots is more or less harmful
| than if they were just being catfished by real, but
| insincere person(s).
|
| Honestly this dystopia is a big letdown over the one I was
| expecting.
| a4000 wrote:
| Essentially that is part the 'male sedation hypothesis'.
|
| Due to the amount of incels or men who aren't really in
| relationships or even work these days, they should be
| causing significant social unrest as they have nothing to
| lose and try and overthrow the current social structure.
| In reality we hardly see any real violence or trouble
| from incels other than the odd angry rant on social media
| and the idea is that things like porn, video games and
| social media take care of the base needs just enough to
| stop the angry from boiling over and causing real
| trouble.
| kraftman wrote:
| Not really no. The models that are replying to fans directly
| are just saying whatever they need to to get more money, often
| from scripts theyve written beforehand. The ones that do well
| offload the communication to an assistant, so the fan isn't
| even talking to model faking it, but an assistant faking it.
| wongarsu wrote:
| The people in the DMs tend to be the whales, the top 0.1% of
| spenders that get you most of your income. That the "unwashed
| masses" that pay a subscription and leave some comments don't
| have a real relationship is clear, but once you are at DMs
| there is the expectation of at least real engagement with the
| creator.
|
| Of course big creators have long outsourced this. You aren't
| writing with them but with someone entirely different who gets
| paid to answer messages. Using AI is just the next step in
| enshittification of something that's pretty exploitative to
| begin with.
| paxys wrote:
| All the top earners on these platforms are already employing
| teams of people to manage interactions with fans. Adding an AI
| layer on top doesn't change all that much in that regard.
| josefresco wrote:
| Isn't the entire reason people pick OF over _traditional porn_
| is they get to have a personal connection with the performer?
| DMs, custom requests etc.? Seems like it would make a huge
| difference to a subscriber who 's looking for that experience.
| Maybe traditional porn will make a come back once AI dominates
| the OF scene.
| jancsika wrote:
| > Isn't the entire reason people pick OF over traditional
| porn is they get to have a personal connection with the
| performer? DMs, custom requests etc.?
|
| Hm...
|
| I assume custom requests would either happen realtime-- in
| which case it's not currently possible to substitute AI video
| output-- or asynchronously-- in which case the _proof_ of
| personal connection eventually happens during a future
| realtime video stream.
|
| If the customer is paying for DM'ing during times when the
| person isn't streaming, I'm having a hard time imagining why
| it would matter whether AI is used or not. Well, at least if
| the quality is decent enough for what I imagine are rather
| terse, domain-specific DMs. :)
| derefr wrote:
| Presumably the goal of the people throwing money at an OF
| content-creator [in the form of "donations" -- "here's some
| extra money without any implied obligation" -- rather than e.g.
| paying for custom content] is to try to jump the gap from
| parasocial relationship to real (sugar?) relationship.
|
| Of course, the OF creator can't form true relationships with
| _thousands_ of people. I 'm guessing that the implicit mental
| model in the heads of OF subscribers who "donate" to creators,
| is that this is a _competition_ -- that they 're all
| participating in something like an ongoing hidden auction for a
| slice of the creator's limited time. They think "if I just pay
| _the most_ , then she'll feel _obligated_ to pay attention to
| me. " (Of course, most creators feel no such sense of
| obligation.)
|
| If OF subscribers can _know_ in advance that that jump is
| fundamentally impossible -- such as if they can discern that a
| dumb AI is responding to their donation-attached messages, and
| that that AI fundamentally has no feature to forward messages
| to the creator themselves -- then they probably wouldn 't
| bother "donating" in the first place.
| Stefan-H wrote:
| The monetization of social and parasocial relationships (from
| advertising in social media to the industry around influencers
| and celebrities of all types) might be one of the cruelest things
| in modern capitalism.
| bhouston wrote:
| How long until the most popular Only Fans creators are fully AI?
|
| I could see these pseudorelations, which are already mediated by
| so much fakery, just continue to evolve in that direction?
|
| Maybe everyone gets their own OnlyFan creators which are
| tailored/adapt to their personal desires?
|
| In the future all of this is AI generated, multimedia, tailored
| to your wants, available and fresh 24/7.
| njtransit wrote:
| First, they came for OF creators, and I did not speak out
| bhouston wrote:
| I am surprised we don't have more YouTube influencers who are
| AI generated. A lot of the opinion YouTubers can likely be
| replaced by AI, eg take a news item and then represent their
| worldview and perspective as the prompt and ask for a script.
| Then pad it out with appropriate AI generated videos to go
| along with the script. You would be missing the custom
| graphics still, but it would be getting close.
| vannevar wrote:
| This was my first thought as well. It won't be long before
| OnlyFans is swamped with bots from organized syndicates, and
| individuals will be forced out.
| bhouston wrote:
| For sure. I think AI image generation (and soon AI video
| generation) can keep up a steady flow of new content for any
| well established creator these days who has enough training
| content. No need for new photo sessions in real life or worry
| about them aging.
| burningChrome wrote:
| There's already copious amounts of scammers on there. I had a
| buddy who would go on Reddit and scrape tons of photos from
| all the NSFW subs, then create OF accounts, pump them up with
| some fake followers and then wait to see how much cash they
| brought in. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
|
| Porn has become such a commodity, access to the images and
| videos to provide fake content has never been easier. Using
| bots to schedule posts and respond to comments has lowered
| the bar even lower and clouded the ability for people to tell
| the difference between what is real and what is fake.
| wongarsu wrote:
| That sounds like the death of Only Fans.
|
| There is plenty of generic porn for free on the internet. The
| only advantages an Only Fans creator has over that are
|
| - being more "real" and relatable
|
| - forming parasocial relationships through engagement
|
| - providing "niche" content (like the teasing egirl non-nudes
| Belle Delphine became famous for)
|
| AI gives you none of that. It's not very good at niche content,
| and for the other two it can only give illusions that will
| break as people get used to AI. In the beginning there is a
| novelty factor to AI interactions, like Twitch's Neuro-Sama,
| but that will wear off. And after that all you're left with are
| disillusioned customers.
| bhouston wrote:
| I bet ai would be excellent at niche content. Why would it
| be? You believe there is a lack of training data?
| nemothekid wrote:
| Never - and I hold this belief for most social media. As genAI
| gets better there will simply be a trillions of slop out there
| rather than simply billions. There is already more content out
| there than a human can reasonably watch.
|
| The best OF creators have simply mastered distribution. Either
| they have taken success in one market and pivoted to OF or they
| are relentlessly marketing themselves through other platforms
| and viral stunts.
|
| I have yet to see an AI master the distribution side. At the
| least good genAI will see the rise of male OF creators
| rriley wrote:
| I think we're already heading in that direction. As generative
| models improve, it'll become cheaper and easier for creators,
| or platforms themselves, to spin up AI-based companions that
| feel personal, available around the clock, and perfectly
| tailored to each subscriber's tastes. Tools like
| https://roleplayr.ai are just the start; we'll likely see many
| more services offering on-demand, individualized role playing
| based on any image/context as the technology matures.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Maybe, but I suspect many lonely people will want to know there
| is a "real" person on the other side of the screen.
| kusokurae wrote:
| Surely the motivation for paying for this pornography is
| precisely the somehow more "human" "closeness" of a known
| individual creating content on a direct, "personal" basis.
|
| It's not quite the-Queen-is-my-friend levels of parasocial but it
| does seem to be about intimacy.
|
| What happens to that business model if customers paying on that
| basis realise they are seeing & talking to a bot? Seems quite
| footshooty.
| paxys wrote:
| People who frequent services like these will go to great
| lengths to keep the fantasy alive. Heck believing that the
| model on the other side of the screen cares for you as a person
| needs a... special state of mind to begin with.
| nymphodang wrote:
| porn and santa are mostly fake
| divbzero wrote:
| This feels representative of our times: Using chatbots to power a
| gig economy of para-social relationships for lonely people short
| on real in-person interactions.
| nyarlathotep_ wrote:
| What a horrifying time to be alive.
| tcdent wrote:
| A friend of mine ran a management company for a couple years, and
| indicated that with the talent they managed, it was almost never
| the actual person responding to DMs.
|
| The outsourced the interactions to third world "typists" that
| took care of it.
|
| This is just an evolution of that, and probably provides a better
| experience, since they're able to tailor the model in a way that
| someone speaking English as a second language never could.
| xnx wrote:
| A comment on another thread claimed the author was getting
| $15K/month with one of these bots:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42376682
| jakub_g wrote:
| Previously:
|
| I Went Undercover as a Secret OnlyFans Chatter (wired.com) 32
| points 6 months ago
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40391797
| golergka wrote:
| I was working on exactly such a project in 2022. It was scrapped
| because there is too much risk in LLM accidentally violating OF
| rules, which immediately results in losing a very valuable
| account.
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