The First Descendant is using AI ads with weird digital clones of actual streamers

The First Descendant Is Getting Called Out for AI Influencer Ads - YouTube

If you've scrolled past an ad on TikTok for Nexon's gooner-looter-shooter The First Descendant you might not have noticed it was made by AI. But if you watch one of them for more than a second, you'll probably figure it out. Each one features an AI streamer rambling about the new boss Wall Crasher and maybe the Nier: Automata crossover while doing an odd headbob that I assume is supposed to make their rubber faces look more excited and emphatic. (The way one of them pronounces "Automata" sounds ridiculous, but has probably been trained on real people struggling to say it.)

Instead of hiring proper influencers, these ads have AI imitations of actual streamers like DanieltheDemon pretending to be as excited about The First Descendant as he is about Warframe. It's not a subtle similarity either, but clearly an AI that's been trained on an actual person.

Because ads on TikTok are unlisted, you won't see these on Nexon's official channel, but they have continued being shown to users even after a backlash began on the official subreddit.

We've seen high-end fashion magazines resort to using an AI-generated model because apparently it's too much hassle to find an attractive blonde woman somewhere in the world of modeling, but this feels like a real low. There are plenty of regular streamers out there you could hire to cut a promo for your mid-tier shlooter. This seems more like the thing you create because management has paid for a bunch of AI tools after reading how essential they are on LinkedIn and keeps insisting you find a use for them.

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Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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