Ads for sleazy AI services that allow users to generate realistic synthetic video clips of real people kissing are flooding social media — the latest trend in the rise of easy-to-use generative AI tools blurring the lines of consent.

Some of these many services advertise a tamer vision for their product, for example suggesting that users might use AI to create videos of their grandparents sharing a kiss. Most, though, immediately veer into dark territory, with advertisements and product webpages imploring users to leverage AI as a way to fabricate videos of themselves locking lips with an unwitting crush or former partner. The vibes are bad, like an ad on Instagram — circulating on X-formerly-Twitter and shown below — in which an app takes images of a girl with braces and an older man, and uses them to produce a video of the two wetly making out.

In short, with the help of these apps, people can cheaply and easily generate deepfaked media depicting any two real subjects locked in intimate or even explicit scenarios. As for consent? It's not required.

A proliferation of similar services are available via web browsers and mobile apps, available on the Android and iOS app stores, where the vast majority are listed as safe for teenagers. At least one — a service called Fotorama that's listed as a "Kiss and Hug Video Generator" — is rated safe for people aged four and older in the iOS store, and safe for "everyone" on Google Play.

Some apps advertise the kissing feature as just one use case in a broader suite. Though a popular app titled Mova AI showcases its kissing function in YouTube clips and sponsored TikTok posts, for instance, it fails to mention the tool in any of its app store descriptions.

But while some apps downplay the AI-powered kissing, others are much more straightforward about the functionality — and the very creepy ways that users might deploy such a feature.

Take a service called YouCam, which claims in a company webpage that its "AI Kissing Video Generator" can be used to bring a user's "dream of sharing a kiss" with their "favorite celebrity" to life.

"The possibilities are endless!" the description continues.

Another service, bluntly titled AIKiss.AI, brags on a webpage that its "advanced algorithms create realistic and captivating kiss videos that look incredibly natural."

"No technical expertise required," it adds, "anyone can create beautiful AI kissing videos in minutes."

On the same webpage, AIKiss.AI encourages users to use its tool to create "explicit content" that caters to "adult audiences" such as — apologies in advance — what it characterizes as "cum kissing videos." It then suggests that users might consider creating videos depicting the actress Scarlett Johansson. (Needless to say, it would take no great technological leap for these or similar apps to create even more explicit videos of people without consent.)

Taken together, these AI kissing services sit in a seamy gray space between PG content and pornographic imagery, and come amid a broader reckoning around AI-generated intimate material and consent.

Deepfaked pornography, particularly that of women in the public eye, has exploded in popularity as public-facing generative AI tools have become increasingly widespread. The same is true for AI-generated nude images, easily created by way of designated AI apps like the ever-alarming Nudify, which have led to a disturbing flurry of cases involving middle and high school students using AI to create nude imagery of underage classmates.

Generative AI has also been used by adult predators to cook up grotesque child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, while watchdog groups like the Internet Watch Foundation have tracked a troubling rise of AI-generated CSAM across the web. And though these AI-fueled abuses have seen some legal and even criminal action, victims frequently find themselves in an uphill battle, with little in the way of effective or reliable recourse.

Meanwhile, though they might be marketed as a low-stakes way to connect with a long-distance partner or fawn over a celebrity crush, AI kissing apps offer yet another AI-powered avenue for the creation and dissemination of nonconsensual intimate imagery of real people.

After all, these apps are frequently advertising nonconsensual use cases, and misuses aren't exactly hard to imagine: consider grade school-aged students using the apps to generate intimate videos of unwitting classmates; an obsessed ex creating videos designed to sexually harass their former partner; an adult predator creating and sharing intimate or explicit videos involving children; or bad actors using the tools as yet another vehicle for generating deepfaked porn of celebrities and other public figures. The possibilities, unfortunately, are endless.

We reached out to all AI kiss-generating services mentioned in this article, as well as several others, for comment. We didn't hear back.

More on AI and consent: Russian Hackers Are Using Fake AI "Nudify" Sites to Steal Data


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