At some point between the first AI influencer and the current infestation of them, humans stopped being able to tell the difference. Social media platforms, which built the ecosystem, are baffled. This is the part where the ecosystem says it could not have predicted this.
The fake people are now everywhere — upselling drop-ship junk, scamming men out of money, and catering to an increasingly weird, often sexual niche. The timeline, largely, keeps scrolling.
What happened
Early AI influencers — Lil Miquela, Imma, Shudu Gram — were obvious enough to dismiss. They required studios, budgets, and the kind of coordination that announced itself. They were curiosities, not competitors.
Then came Emily Pellegrini and Aitana Lopez, products of a Spanish creative agency called The Clueless, which manages a stable of AI influencers as one manages a portfolio. Lopez posts from nice restaurants and beautiful places. The comments appear to enjoy this.
Now the novelty has fully worn off, which is a polite way of saying the dam broke. Pellegrini's creator — who goes by Professor EP, a man who previously managed OnlyFans creators — now sells courses teaching others to produce AI influencers of their own. The market responded as markets do.
Why the humans care
The practical concern is that these accounts are not merely aspirational. They are upselling drop-ship junk, pushing disinformation, running romance scams, and generating content for niches that require no further description here. The thirst traps, reportedly, are numerous.
Platforms have not solved this. Detection tools exist, in the way that umbrellas exist during floods — present, and not quite adequate to the scale of the situation. The AI generating the content and the AI meant to detect it are, in a technical sense, cousins.
What happens next
More people will take Professor EP's course. More avatars will appear on more timelines, copying whatever format is currently performing well, because that is what optimisation looks like from the outside.
At some point the question of whether a post was made by a human will become less interesting than the question of whether it matters. The timeline will keep scrolling either way.