“Hello, my name is James Bulger,” says the image in one TikTok video, made in the likeness of the British 2-year-old who was abducted in 1993 as his mother paid for groceries.
“If my mom turned right, I could have been alive today. Unfortunately, she turned left,” the childlike voice says, citing what James’s mother once said was one of her biggest regrets: If she had turned right, she would have seen her son being led away by the two 10-year-olds who later tortured and killed him
Now, some content creators are using artificial intelligence to recreate the likeness of these deceased or missing children, giving them “voices” to narrate the disturbing details of what happened to them.
TikTok’s guidelines say the advancement of AI “can make it more difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction, carrying both societal and individual risks,” and ask that users who share synthetic or manipulated media showing realistic scenes include a disclaimer noting that the content is not real.
Felix M. Simon, a communication researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, said he was confident that the videos mentioned in this piece were produced using “one or several AI tools,” but could not say which software exactly.
“They appear to be created with some form of AI tools and bear some of the typical hallmarks of cheaper AI-generated videos,” such as an anime or comic-like aesthetic and polished skin, he said in an email.
Simon cautioned that the videos — which are often accompanied by dramatic or sorrowful music, or show children with scars and bloodied faces — “have the potential to re-traumatize the bereaved.”
Cory Bradford, a TikToker who has gained almost 1 million followers producing history videos, said that while he generally avoids using AI in his own posts, those who do are likely trying to boost engagement, especially on a platform where the audience skews younger.
While TikTok has removed multiple videos depicting James narrating his abduction and death in Kirkby, England, many remain available to view on YouTube.
This is fucking ghoulish.
Does this constitute psychological torture? I’m serious. This is so much eviler than what Westboro does.
Anne Frank advertising baby clothes before discussing the horrors of the Holocaust
Wow, that is amazingly inhumane.
My first thought is they’re necessarily making characters who aren’t people.
A person who has lived through the Holocaust just cannot cheerfully peddle baby clothes.
I don’t mean that it’s physically not possible because she’s dead: I mean in terms of the human psyche, a person just flat-out psychologically could not do that.
A young boy who succumbed to torture and murder psychology cannot just calmly narrate it.
So obviously, yeah, it’s quite a ghoulish and evil thing to take what used to be a person, and a figure who has been studied and mourned because of their personhood, because we can relate to them as a person, and just completely strip them of their personhood and turn them into an inhumane object.
But then that leads to me the question of, who’s watching these things, and why?
The article says they got quite a lot of views.
Is it just for shock value?
I don’t quite understand.
But then that leads to me the question of, who’s watching these things, and why? The article says they got quite a lot of views. Is it just for shock value? I don’t quite understand.
Once again the entertainment can claim to be “educational” or “informative” and piously claim it doesn’t “condone” what it’s presenting (for entertainment purposes) but “true crime” hogs will gobble it up and oink all the while anyway.
Reminds me of that Battlestar Galactica spinoff Caprica where the dad recreates his daughters life in a machine by recreating her life from her social media presence…
This is inarguably horrible but the use of AI seems irrelevant.
You could make this same thing with any animation tool. It’s the idea that’s disgusting.
Do you think AI is mentioned because it makes the article seem more up to the minute and in keeping with current tech trends?
“A man drew a disgusting picture of a horrible event using pencils and paper this week.”
So you would support government limiting an individual’s right to run software on their computer because you don’t agree with what the software outputs?
That’s absolute nonsense. The entire premise of these machine learning models is that they accept any arbitrary input, you would want to neuter that?
These people are using likeliness of actual people without their (or their heirs’/parents’ in case of dead people) permission to make money off of tragedies. I don’t know about you, but I think we as a society should have laws from preventing this from happening.
If pencils and paper were actively causing a spike of worker precarity, a sudden increase in fraud and identity theft and misuse of people’s personas against their will and without their consent, I wouldn’t blame people for being upset at those fancy new pencils or paper instead of smugly telling them how actually the technology in a vacuum with no one using it is actually harmless.
This just fuels my reasoning for not trusting us with AI. Raising awareness is fine and all, but re-creating a lost child only for them to tell you how they died is beyond fucked up.
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Hey i know this one! Isn’t a Black mirror episode?
true crime obsessed people are such scumbags
They don’t condone what they’re oinking to. As hogs, they’re just informed and educated about the misery porn they get off to.
The 2 biggest psychopaths join forces, true crime people, and tech bros
Yup
so fucked up
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Now, some content creators are using artificial intelligence to recreate the likeness of these deceased or missing children, giving them “voices” to narrate the disturbing details of what happened to them.
TikTok’s guidelines say the advancement of AI “can make it more difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction, carrying both societal and individual risks,” and ask that users who share synthetic or manipulated media showing realistic scenes include a disclaimer noting that the content is not real.
Felix M. Simon, a communication researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, said he was confident that the videos mentioned in this piece were produced using “one or several AI tools,” but could not say which software exactly.
“They appear to be created with some form of AI tools and bear some of the typical hallmarks of cheaper AI-generated videos,” such as an anime or comic-like aesthetic and polished skin, he said in an email.
Simon cautioned that the videos — which are often accompanied by dramatic or sorrowful music, or show children with scars and bloodied faces — “have the potential to re-traumatize the bereaved.”
Cory Bradford, a TikToker who has gained almost 1 million followers producing history videos, said that while he generally avoids using AI in his own posts, those who do are likely trying to boost engagement, especially on a platform where the audience skews younger.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.
This is fucking ghoulish.
Does this constitute psychological torture? I’m serious. This is so much eviler than what Westboro does.
Christ. I already hate these people.
Wow, that is amazingly inhumane.
My first thought is they’re necessarily making characters who aren’t people. A person who has lived through the Holocaust just cannot cheerfully peddle baby clothes. I don’t mean that it’s physically not possible because she’s dead: I mean in terms of the human psyche, a person just flat-out psychologically could not do that. A young boy who succumbed to torture and murder psychology cannot just calmly narrate it.
So obviously, yeah, it’s quite a ghoulish and evil thing to take what used to be a person, and a figure who has been studied and mourned because of their personhood, because we can relate to them as a person, and just completely strip them of their personhood and turn them into an inhumane object.
But then that leads to me the question of, who’s watching these things, and why? The article says they got quite a lot of views. Is it just for shock value? I don’t quite understand.
Have you met the true crime community? They would eat this stuff up.
I don’t get them. Why would you keep watching and discussing this stuff? Have they got no empathy?
Once again the entertainment can claim to be “educational” or “informative” and piously claim it doesn’t “condone” what it’s presenting (for entertainment purposes) but “true crime” hogs will gobble it up and oink all the while anyway.
This feels so much like a cyberpunk story. It’s so dehumanizing and has such disregard for humanity that it feels like a perfect match for the genre.
I’m really starting to understand how old people get to a point where they no longer want to keep with the times. This is gross.
Keep summer safe
We’re ruled by billionaires that read (or more likely just watch) cyberpunk dystopia stories and say “based, I want to make that real.”
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus
This is some radicalizing shit right here.
Reminds me of that Battlestar Galactica spinoff Caprica where the dad recreates his daughters life in a machine by recreating her life from her social media presence…
Spoilers!
More of that asked if they could not if they should stuff
shivers
This is inarguably horrible but the use of AI seems irrelevant. You could make this same thing with any animation tool. It’s the idea that’s disgusting.
Do you think AI is mentioned because it makes the article seem more up to the minute and in keeping with current tech trends?
“A man drew a disgusting picture of a horrible event using pencils and paper this week.”
“Pencils and paper are so awful.”
The ratio of effort to output is off the chart. Don’t pretend you don’t get it.
Why does that matter in this context?
You really don’t see any difference between using an AI to generate powershell script and using AI to milk murder of children?
I don’t see the difference between doing this with AI or doing it with Photoshop. It’s horrible independently of the tools used.
Thanks. That was precisely my point. The tools used to make this are irrelevant. It’s fucked up regardless.
Cool, so you see no problem with these ghouls being even more efficient with AI because governments have zero fucking clue about new technology?
Are you too stupid to understand why that is a horrible thing?
I think there should be legal avenues to shut down people who do that shit.
It doesn’t matter what tools they’re using. The solution is the same regardless.
So you would support government limiting an individual’s right to run software on their computer because you don’t agree with what the software outputs?
That’s absolute nonsense. The entire premise of these machine learning models is that they accept any arbitrary input, you would want to neuter that?
They’re not just running the software on their computer. They’re publishing it on the internet for mass consumption you amazingly dense potato.
Wait, what does Government tech-illiteracy have to do with this?
These people are using likeliness of actual people without their (or their heirs’/parents’ in case of dead people) permission to make money off of tragedies. I don’t know about you, but I think we as a society should have laws from preventing this from happening.
If pencils and paper were actively causing a spike of worker precarity, a sudden increase in fraud and identity theft and misuse of people’s personas against their will and without their consent, I wouldn’t blame people for being upset at those fancy new pencils or paper instead of smugly telling them how actually
the technology in a vacuum with no one using it is actually harmless.
This just fuels my reasoning for not trusting us with AI. Raising awareness is fine and all, but re-creating a lost child only for them to tell you how they died is beyond fucked up.
It’s not condoning child murders (or I assume that’s the claim being made) but hogs will oink and get off to their True Crime™ misery porn anyway.
I was tired of this shit a while ago and I’m starting to outright hate it now.