Skipping down a red-carpeted Tudor-style staircase while balancing a delicate cup of tea, a red-haired man with a bob by the username of Duke of Ashcombe seems to be nothing more than ecstatic as a smiling woman sweeps in to join his dance in a video.
In another video, the same Duke swiftly skips alongside a windswept shore, still clutching to the same white teacup, with a caption reading “Dear Gentle Scroller.”
But despite the charming world-building of the account behind these videos, its content is not real. The videos are merely almost exact AI-generated replicas of content created by Kjetil Krogstad, a popular creator on Instagram
Since he began posting videos five years ago, Krogstad has amassed a following of 759,000 followers on Instagram who tune in to see him dance. His content is stylistically distinct: Krogstad mostly wears a dark suit with a white shirt and a red tie, holding a teacup and saucer set as a nod to the popular term “spill the tea.”
“I’ve had people remake my work and I love it, it’s amazing,” Krogstad tells Fast Company. “But then you suddenly have a very different ‘creator’ stealing my videos, turning it into AI videos. And I do find it very weird.”
Krogstad recently voiced his frustrations online, posting two videos, each featuring a recording of his own content and the AI-generated copy beside it, captioned “When is it inspiration? and When is it stealing?”
The response was overwhelming, with the videos receiving over 1 million views collectively, and with most users agreeing that the AI content was in fact a form of stealing.
“This is stealing and it’s disgusting AI slop,” one user commented on Instagram.
Another added, “This is really upsetting, and I genuinely believe we need to do something about it. It’s simply not acceptable for someone to keep taking advantage of our dear friend’s hard work and creativity without permission or proper credit.”
A growing practice
While the original account Duke of Ashcombe is no longer searchable on Instagram—presumably it has been either privated by the user or taken down due to mass reporting from Krogstad’s supporters—the issue of third parties using AI to copy a creator’s style is increasingly widespread.
Another creator with almost 1 million views, who is known for filming himself singing under a ceiling fan while the camera spins around him, shared a similar story.
In a post sharing an AI-generated copy of his video, he wrote, “This isn’t the first time that my videos have been used as a base, but it is the first time my home has been used unaltered.”
He added, “Imagine if [your] significant other ended up seeing a video of another man or woman in your home… unsettling, isn’t it?”
Just this spring, Krogstad came across a series of AI-generated videos of bunnies replicating videos he had created. But in this case, the bunnies had more views than he did.
“What could happen if we let this continue is the original creator could then suddenly end up looking like the copycat,” he says.
Perhaps the most bizarre thing he came to find out was the reason behind the sudden influx in these types of accounts: the accounts appear to be trying to sell courses that teach people how to use AI to replicate other people’s content and use it for profit.
“I was like, but are you serious?” Krogstad says. “You’re using then my videos and other creators’ videos that we’ve made and you profit out of selling like a class where people learn how to keep stealing content from creators.”
However, the practice seems to also be bleeding outside of the bot accounts.
Take ASAP Rocky’s new Shroom Clouds music video, which has caught the attention of users claiming a short sequence in the video is an AI replica of one done by another creator in 2019.
The creator of the original video—which features a person jumping on grass with a 360-cam kaleidoscope effect—has since spoken out about the issue on Instagram. Their story read, “the word is really getting out. proud of the creative community for standing up about it.”
Fast Company reached out to ASAP Rocky for comment.
Legal boundaries ‘remain uncertain’
As the issue continues to grow, the law may not be quite ready to protect content creators. While currently copyright protections for distinct creative content exist, the lines are blurry when it comes to what is protected and what isn’t, particularly in relation to AI-generated content.
“The central challenge for the industry at this time is that AI technology is advancing faster than the legal framework governing it,” Joe Bogdan, IP expert and partner at Rimon Law, tells Fast Company. “It does mean that creators will increasingly face unauthorized use and exploitation of their work, and perhaps even their identities, while the boundaries of legal protection remain uncertain.”
But even if American laws were to catch up, it might not necessarily protect creators around the world, which is why some users are pushing for more clear protections from the platforms themselves.
Policy guidelines for Meta Platforms, Instagram’s owner, are just as vague as the law, defining content that might be protected by copyright as something “created by the author themselves and [has] some minimal amount of creativity.”
The guidelines also are absent of specifics on AI and its use to replicate the work of creators, instead suggesting users to report work that might seem to violate their original work.
Krogstad says he has tried contacting Instagram repeatedly to no avail, even tuning in to head of Instagram Adam Mosseri’s weekly Q&As.
“I think I’ve lost count on how many times I tried putting in the questions of how do you spot them AI bots and how do you sort of spot the AI videos,” Krogstad says.
He also added that, since his recent post on Instagram, a representative from TikTok reached out to gather information on the issue—which also happens on other platforms—and try to come to a solution.
Meta declined to comment.
But as creators wait for a response, they also want to highlight the broader implications of AI replicas.
“I just had [someone write to me] to say we’re seeing it with creators, with artists, art people, but they said it’s also happening on all the universities, with students, with like politicians,” Krogstad says. “A lot of people are getting their content stolen and used. So it’s not just creators on social media, it’s everywhere.”
