Claudia has left men feeling ‘cheated’ after they discovered she's not real. Photo / Reddit
A group of men left heartbroken after discovering the “perfect” woman they’d met online is actually an AI creation say they feel “cheated” by the deception.
With her girl-next-door looks, “Claudia” was easy to fall for. But she’s no ordinary catfish.
The computer-generated woman sells nude photos to fans on Reddit, where she’s reportedly “quite popular”, according to the Washington Post.
It’s this success online, and her incredibly realistic photos, that have left some feeling “a bit cheated” after learning they’d been cybernetically catfished.
The digital sex worker has become a recent fixture on the platform sharing glamorous selfies, and earning hordes of cash in the process.
“Feeling pretty today,” she wrote in her most viral post, which shows her staring seductively into the camera.
In another more risqué picture, which has since been deleted according to the New York Post, the web girl can be seen completely in the nude with the caption: “What do you think about my body?”
Reddit users were left salivating over Claudia, calling her “hot” and “very gorgeous” – though few appeared to realise she was in fact not a real person.
Reddit user LegalBeagle1966 frequently told Claudia she was “pretty sexy” and “perfect” after failing to recognise the girl of his dreams was a deep fake.
Another user, SpareRare, said: “Hey darlin’. I think I just fell in love; 41 here. Your future hubby. Ring incoming.”
Claudia was created by two cheeky computer science students, who concocted the avatar as a goof to “see if you can fool people with AI pictures,” the anonymous creators told Rolling Stone.
The pair said they were inspired to create Claudia after encountering a post on Reddit from a user who claimed to earn $US500 (about $NZD804) from catfishing victims online.
To automate the process, the digital wizards used Stable Diffusion, an AI program that generates strikingly realistic pictures using only a text prompt – like a pictorial version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The duo created Claudia by requesting a selfie of a woman in her house “without make-up with black, shoulder-length hair, simple background, straight hair, bangs”.
The recreational catfishers then disseminated her nudes online, earning $US100 ($A150) before users cottoned on.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t go down too well.
“For those who aren’t aware, I’m going to kill your fantasy,” said one disgruntled user.
“This is literally an AI creation, if you’ve worked with AI image models and making your own long enough, you can 10000 per cent tell.”
“Guys, she’s clearly fake, don’t waste your time,” another wrote.
Some of the telltale signs of an AI avatar include bizarre background details and a mysteriously vanishing neck mole, according to AI experts, the Washington Post reported.
The implications of making adult entertainers from digital concentrate run deeper than leaving people feeling “cheated”.
There are concerns the fake porn stars could render their human counterparts on OnlyFans and elsewhere obsolete, the New York Post states.
This fear, from experts and sex workers, is based on the idea porn audiences might prefer “perfect” fakes to the real thing as they can be programmed to be “perfect,” with “small waists” and “big breasts”.
And while platforms like Reddit have certain rules in place to prevent deep fakes from proliferating, this content is readily available online.
Certain Discord communities are hawking AI-made “personal girls” – aka non-celebrities – for as cheap as $US5 ($A7.50) per photo.
But not everyone shares those concerns.
“The average person who’s looking at this stuff, I don’t think they care,” one anonymous deep fake porn creator told the Washington Post.
Australian OnlyFans creator, Laura Lux, even declared on Twitter last month AI would never be able to overtake the real deal.
“Anyone who thinks AI-generated images of hot naked women is going to ruin the OnlyFans economy for real-life women has a fundamental misunderstanding of what OnlyFans is,” she said.
Lux says her subscribers prefer a personal connection that AI-generated “stars” will be unable to provide.
“People do not subscribe to my OnlyFans because they want to see a random naked woman,” she continued.
“They subscribe to my OnlyFans because they want to see ME naked specifically based on a parasocial connection formed by following me on other social media platforms.”
Meanwhile, British sexologist Ness Cooper agreed, stating artificial intelligence simply can’t replicate the complexities and nuances of human sexuality.
“I strongly doubt there ever will be the one porn that rules them all, as that’s not how our brains work when it comes to sexual fantasies and erotic images,” she told the Independent. “Simply put, we are all different and enjoy different things.”