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The creators of an AI tool and Discord community that allowed people to create AI videos of NBA stars says that it got a cease-and-desist letter from lawyers representing LeBron James. This marks one of the first known times that a high-profile celebrity has threatened legal action against an AI company for enabling the creation of nonconsensual AI imagery of their likeness. It is also one of the first times we’ve seen a celebrity take legal action against a type of nonconsensual but not strictly sexual type of AI-generated content, which is rampant on Instagram and other social media.
In March, I wrote about ‘Brainrot’ AI that was regularly going viral on Instagram. A lot of the most popular brainrot AI videos featured LeBron James and were created using a tool called Interlink AI, which runs on a larger AI generation platform called FlickUp. On the Interlink AI Discord channel, people were learning how to make the videos with detailed guides that in some cases explained exactly how to make videos of James. High profile creators there were racking up millions of views on Instagram making AI generated videos of James and Steph Curry. These included videos where an AI-generated James stood by as an AI-generated Diddy sexually assaulted Steph Curry in prison, videos of James imagined as a homeless person, videos of James on his knees with his tongue out, and videos of James pregnant.
In late June, the mods of the Interlink AI Discord community told members that they decided to remove all “realistic people models” from the Interlink AI platform.
“This change comes after we ran into legal issues involving a highly valued basketball player, and to avoid any further complications, we’ve chosen to take a proactive approach and fully remove all realistic likenesses from the site,” the mods wrote on Discord. “We know this may be disappointing for some of you who were enjoying the realism in your content, but this move protects the future of the platform and allows us to focus on building something even bigger.”