Alibaba’s ‘Animate Anyone’ Is Trained on Scraped Videos of Famous TikTokers

Chinese retail giant Alibaba has released a new image-to-video model called ‘Animate Anyone’, which has gained attention for its potential to replace TikTok personalities. The model takes TikTok dance videos as input and creates AI-generated replicas of the dances. While the results are slightly worse than the originals, as with all AI advancements, it is expected to improve over time. However, concerns have been raised about the potential misuse of the technology for generating non-consensual videos. The ‘Animate Anyone’ model is trained on a dataset scraped from popular TikTok creators, including Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae, without their consent. This highlights the ethical implications of using scraped datasets without permission. The project also raises legal concerns, as artists and content creators are increasingly suing AI companies for using their works without proper authorization. The case of choreographer Kyle Hanagami’s lawsuit against Epic Games exemplifies the impact on creative expression in the digital age. Academics creating large datasets of real people’s content should consider the future ramifications. Overall, the ‘Animate Anyone’ model showcases the power and potential pitfalls of AI technology in the world of social media and creative content creation.