Someone is making generative versions of Twitch streamers–and sending them live on the platform.
As Kotaku noticed, Twitch’s “Probably Artificial, Hopefully Intelligent” section of its homepage recently featured a new addition: An artificial intelligence-generated version of xQc called xQc_AI.
xQc, who has 12 million followers on Twitch, has long been one of the platform’s most followed and most prolific streamers. He also recently snagged a $100 million, non-exclusive deal from Twitch competitor Kick to start streaming over there, too.
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Basically, there’s a lot of footage of him on the internet, and someone calling themself “DerpyIsFishing” has crammed all that footage into a generator to make a copycat version of him.
The stream looks just like the real thing. There’s gameplay (usually of the platformer Only Up!, which xQc has played numerous times on stream) with a separate camera showing xQc’s face in the upper left corner. Viewers can interact with the bot by asking questions in chat, which it then generates answers to out loud.
DerpyIsFishing–who only recently added their name to the About section of not-xQc’s channel–laid out some ground rules for chatters, including instant permaban if anyone tries to trick not-xQc into saying anything against Twitch TOS, and no using the bot to “generate harmful content.”
So far, not-xQc has attracted more than 11,000 followers. DerpyIsFishing also has a clone of streamer Forsen. The real Forsen has 1.7 million followers; the bot, forsen_AI_Clone, has around 300.
Neither xQc nor Forsen have publicly commented on the bots. While DerpyIsFishing does disclose upfront that their bots aren’t associated with the real streamers, the whole cloning situation is still concerning in an era where many female Twitch streamers are actively dealing with a deluge of deepfake NSFW content made with similar generative programs. This project, like lots of other “AI” content, makes us wonder why people feel the need to trot out ripoffs when the real thing is right there.
