Curt Skelton is a college student and visual effects artist. He has managed to convince countless users on TikTok that he was a fake character created by a different visual effects enthusiast, Input reports.
It’s a mind-blowing feat prank that shows how manipulative technology can be, especially with the use of photorealistic deepfakes and AI image generators.
In a video that’s been watched over 13.5 million times on the platform, Skelton claimed that he was a 21-year-old visual effects artist Zahra Hussain, and this was made convincing with the help of AI-powered tool DALL-E that created an image, which was then wrapped around a 3D frame and animated.
“Will artificial intelligence replace the role of visual effects artists?” Skelton asks rhetorically in the video. “It already has, I’m not real,” the video continues, Curt’s voice melting into that of another person, identified as Hussain. “Curt Skelton is a fake character I made using multiple AI-powered programs, and here’s how I did it.”
“I don’t know what to believe,” one user replied.
“I am having a crisis is she being honest or not,” another chimed in.
It was revealed that both Hussain and Skelton were real visual effects artists. Skelton isn’t a character created by Hussain. They only worked together for the prank.
“He had a full idea down ready to go,” Hussain told Input, referring to Skelton coming to her with the idea. “He brought me onboard with his enthusiasm.”
Skelton is also not very happy about the whole fiasco.
“I don’t blame the people who thought it was real,” he told Input.
“People flooded my Instagram with comments asking if I was real — and also my girlfriend’s Instagram, letting her know that I was in fact a robot,” he added.
But at the end of the day, Skelton thinks it was all fair game.
“The goal was never to trick people,” Skelton told Input. “They did that to themselves.”