AI is coming for your jokes — and its armed with double Ds.
Two comics have posted videos within the past couple of weeks showing sexy AI “comedians” on social media racking up views by performing their exact routines.
First was comic and content creator, George Brett Olson, who did a breakdown (watch it below) accusing an AI Instagram account with 300,000 followers of seemingly ripped off his joke word for word. The fake comic was a highly realistic-looking female character that even had the same venue background and wore clothing similar to his own. The avatar also, he noted, has an OnlyFans page.
“AI stole my joke and my outfit,” Olson said. “You might be saying, ‘I’ve heard comedians talk about this already,’ but this is new — very new.”
Adding to the surreal nature of the incident, Olson’s joke was about AI’s threat to jobs and how billionaires like Instagram’s parent company co-founder Mark Zuckerberg are complicit. “This is the most ironic thing that’s ever happened to me,” Olson said.
A few days ago, stand-up comic Julia Jasunas (Comics Unleashed) took to Instagram to show a similar side-by-side example of an AI account with 250,000 followers ripping off one of her jokes verbatim (below). The fake comic even made the same random aside that Jasunas said to a member of her audience.
“So another AI bot just stole my joke,” Jasunas said. “I’ve seen a couple other videos of other comedians posting about the exact same problem, and the thing that’s the most concerning is these AI bots are going viral, and people think that they’re real people.”
The AI version was seemingly crafted to look like a stand-up comic version of Lara Croft. “Who does comedy in Daisy Duke shorts?” Jasunas quipped.
UK comedy news site Chortle found several other examples of stolen jokes on the same account that knocked off Jasunas — including content by Char Ramtin, Olivia Carter and Hannah Berner. “It’s incredibly unsettling that someone is using scantily clad AI-generated women to perform stolen jokes and generate profit from views and engagement, then funnel people toward an OnlyFans account for additional profit, all for a woman who doesn’t even exist!” Jasunas told the site. “No wonder there’s a male loneliness epidemic.” (Neither AI Instagram account cited by the comics replied to a request for comment).
Olson and Jasunas said they have received no support from Meta regarding the issue and Olson blasted the platform for not doing more to protect original content. “The craziest thing is that there’s no terms of service violation here,” he said. “We’re watching [social media leaders] in real time say, ‘Hey, we’re building something that’s going to destroy everything,’ and then watching them protect no one [and] not anything that makes us human — songs, laughter … Maybe [Meta] should realize the reason we like the internet is that low key we like each other … and now you’re going to exponentially flood the internet with things that are not us.”
In response to an inquiry by The Hollywood Reporter, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said in a statement, “I don’t think it’s practical for us to try and ban AI content from the platform. It’s gonna be harder and harder to identify, and it’s not all bad content (though yes, there is plenty of slop). But we are very invested in trying to drive more traffic to original content creators, and if an AI creator is ripping off content wholesale, it would be good for us to work out what we can do about that. I’m not sure what it would be, but I’ll make sure to talk to the team and look into it.” A Meta spokesperson added the problem has cropped up on other platforms (such as YouTube and Tiktok) as well.
Jasunas, meanwhile, urged those watching her video to support comics by going to see live shows instead of scrolling for clips
“Comedians post their stand-up clips online to get you to come out and see live comedy,” Jasunas added. “Live comedy is meant to be experienced in the flesh, and if you’re watching these videos and you’re not realizing that these are computers regurgitating our jokes that we’ve crafted over time on stage and honed and whittled down into a punchy bit. Then you need to get out and take a walk and go see a live show.”