AI Avatars: The Peril for Performers

Performers are licensing their likeness for AI avatars, often for meager fees, only to find their digital selves used in unexpected ways across platforms. This raises urgent questions about control, compensation, and the blurring lines of authenticity in advertising.

Scott Jacqmein, a 52-year-old actor in Dallas, lives a curious double life.

In his physical form, he’s navigating a burgeoning acting career after years in nursing, a pivot that speaks to the human desire for reinvention.

In the digital realm, however, a spectral version of Scott, shorn of his signature facial hair and speaking with an unsettlingly stilted cadence, is busy shilling everything from insurance quotes to daily horoscope apps on TikTok.

Sometimes, this digital doppelgänger even speaks fluent Spanish – a linguistic feat beyond Jacqmein’s actual capabilities.

The calls and texts from bewildered friends and acquaintances are weekly reminders of this unsettling reality.

They recognize a familiar face, yet something is undeniably “off.”

The truth, as Jacqmein has discovered, is that he didn’t perform in any of these videos.

His likeness, his very essence, has been distilled into a “digital avatar,” powered by artificial intelligence, after he licensed his image to TikTok last year.

Now, a version of Scott Jacqmein is an untethered commercial entity, a tireless digital pitchman for hire, constrained only by TikTok’s broad marketing guidelines.

He signed up for it, believing it a path to career growth.

Now, he harbors regrets.

“You really don’t know the ramifications of this,” Jacqmein mused, a sentiment that echoes the disquiet felt by many grappling with the accelerating pace of generative AI.

This isn’t just about one actor’s buyer’s remorse; it’s a stark illustration of the rapidly shifting landscape of advertising, where the lines between reality and synthetic creation blur with alarming speed.

TikTok, owned by the Chinese behemoth ByteDance, introduced its menu of AI avatars last year, allowing advertisers to select a digital pitch person based on age, gender, or ethnicity.

For a platform estimated to pull in over $10 billion in U.S. ad revenue annually, it’s a remarkably cost-effective solution.

For the actors whose images populate this digital roster, it’s often a raw deal.

Jacqmein received a mere $750 and a trip to the Bay Area for the work.

No royalties, no ongoing compensation for the digital version of himself working tirelessly around the clock.

Tracy Fetter, a Bay Area artist and comedian who also licensed her likeness, received even less than $1,000.

Another performer, speaking anonymously due to embarrassment, was paid just $500 for an avatar now promoting fiber supplements to gay men, complete with fabricated sexual preferences.

These sums, experts confirm, are a pittance compared to standard commercial rates for even non-represented actors, let alone those with agents.

The lure of working with a massive platform, combined with the vulnerability of new or unrepresented talent, creates a fertile ground for exploitation.

“The technology is evolving faster than the contracts, and they are poaching eager new actors who don’t have representation into their web of avatars,” Jacqmein observed, a damning assessment of the power imbalance.

For advertisers, the appeal is obvious.

Companies like American Eagle’s CMO, Craig Brommers, can walk into TikTok’s offices, speak for a few minutes, and have an AI version of themselves ready to “say anything” on demand.

Yaniv Moore, CEO of advertising technology company Tarzo, extols the efficiency: “You can A/B-test scripts, you can A/B-test presenters, and you can do that en masse and very quickly.”

His firm has even paid actors as little as $20-$50 for similar video recordings, making TikTok’s free avatars an even more attractive proposition.

The prospect of an avatar that “can speak all the languages in the world” offers unprecedented global reach at minimal cost.

Yet, this convenience comes with a profound loss of control.

Performers like Jacqmein were largely under the impression their avatars would be confined to TikTok.

They were dismayed to discover their contracts, vaguely referencing “third parties,” allowed their digital selves to appear on other ByteDance properties, like the popular video-editing app CapCut.

Worse, advertisers themselves have skirted TikTok’s policies, downloading and repurposing avatar videos for platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, often without the crucial “AI Generated” label.

Jacqmein’s avatar, for instance, was recently spotted on YouTube promoting a “male performance” supplement – a clear violation of TikTok’s terms that required his personal intervention to remove.

The broader implications are unsettling.

Jeanne Fromer, an intellectual property law professor at NYU, highlights the legal quagmire: once a likeness is sold, performers have little recourse if their digital twin articulates beliefs counter to their own, advertises products they find abhorrent, or portrays characters they would never embody.

While TikTok insists on “strict oversight” and adherence to guidelines, past incidents – like the ability of an internal AI avatar tool to recite portions of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” – underscore the inherent risks of such powerful, unchecked technology.

For now, the subtle imperfections of these digital doppelgängers offer a sliver of comfort.

Jacqmein’s avatar lacks his “silver fox energy” because the technology couldn’t render his facial hair correctly at the time of filming.

Fetter finds it “kind of creepy to see myself talking about a tree-cutting service.”

But these quirks are fleeting.

The trajectory is clear: increasingly sophisticated, indistinguishable AI personas.

Fetter, despite the oddity of seeing her avatar “Lucy” out in the wild, remains pragmatic.

“Pretend-me is doing better than the real me in all the years of social media that I’ve been trying to do this,” she quipped, likely to renew her agreement.

Her words resonate with a chilling truth: in the brave new world of AI-driven commerce, the digital self, once a mere reflection, is fast becoming a more viable, more active, and ultimately, more marketable entity than the human it represents.

The question remains: at what cost to our agency, our identity, and the very fabric of authenticity?