Nicki Minaj's Very Public Issue With Tom Holland Explained: Blame It All on Deepfake AI
The Internet is getting weirder and weirder.
AI is on the rise: a technology that was once dismissed as a fleeting trend is now seemingly threatening millions of jobs around the world. AI can write books, paint pictures, compose music and even make movies in a matter of hours, and that is worrying Hollywood and its plethora of famous actors.
Some celebrities are already banning early adopters of AI from using their images, threatening legal action if they do, but it would appear that some people are only now beginning to understand what AI is really capable of.
Early last week, Nicki Minaj posted a somewhat surprising message on her Twitter page, seemingly kicking off a feud with Tom Holland. While some fans were puzzled as to why the popular rapper chose to confront the young MCU actor, what really happened was that both Minaj and Holland were used in an unauthorised deep-fake project titled Deep Fake Neighbour Wars.
Seeing how Minaj said she wanted to abolish the entire Internet after seeing her face used in a trailer for a deep fake show suggests the pop star must have had her very first encounter with the power of AI, and fans are already making fun of her clueless response.
The video that upset Minaj is actually part of ITVX network's Deep Fake Neighbour Wars, a parody of the popular New Zealand reality series Neighbours at War. Minaj and Holland are not the only celebrities whose likenesses were used to create this show. Major names like Kim Kardashian, Idris Elba, Beyonce, and Billie Eilish could all potentially sue ITVX for using their faces without permission.
While it's still unclear whether it's legal for AI enthusiasts to use celebrity likenesses in their projects, there is no denying that the imagined scenario of Tom Holland and Nicki Minaj sharing a house and feuding with their neighbours is a spectacle that only AI-powered deep-fake algorithms can generate.
Whatever the case may be, Minaj and Holland have yet to officially take legal action against the network, and it's unclear if they ever will, especially Minaj, seeing how the scandal is the first time she has been put in the spotlight in a very long time.