Social Media Star Develops and Rents Out AI Replica of Herself for Online Videos

By: Ene Ayegba | Last updated: Nov 05, 2023

For many years, computer-generated virtual influencers have been promoting brands, living luxurious lives, and gaining many followers on social media. It was expected that this growing trend would also influence the influencing culture.

With the help of AI-powered image generators like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, people are creating social media profiles of internet personalities that are entirely made up and don’t exist in the real world. Enter 19-year-old Milia Sofia.

The Virtual Girl from Helsinki Finland

Milia Sofia is a 19-year-old AI-generated woman living in Helsinki who has gained a large following on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, with tens of thousands of followers. Every picture of her in revealing outfits, taken in various vacation destinations and sandy beaches, gets thousands of likes and comments, sometimes even tens of thousands.

Source: Milia Sofia/ Twitter

While the suggestive nature of these pictures might be the reason for their popularity, it’s clear that she has a large fanbase.

Sofia’s Background

The creator doesn’t hide the fact that Sofia is an AI creation. Her website is quite interesting, as her creator provided a summary of her background.

Source: Milia Sofia/ Twitter

According to her website, Sofia has worked as a fashion model and is “currently deciding which brand to collaborate with as a fashion ambassador and virtual influencer.” Interestingly, she also claims to have earned a “University of Life” degree in “self-adaptive learning and data-driven mastery.”

There Are Many Others

And it’s not just Sofia. If you search on Twitter, you’ll find many other AI-generated influencers with many followers on social media. One virtual influencer, Alexis Ivyedge, tweeted, “Who needs pickup lines when you’re a virtual girl?” She added, “I’m already in your heart (and your phone)!”

“Just an ordinary AI girl posting my virtual life where I can be anything whenever I want,” another virtual influencer’s Twitter bio reads.

A Cause for Concern

While this development is fascinating and adds a new layer of distance from reality in the world of AI and social media, it still begs the question of whether people know they are not real. People follow human influencers to get a taste of a glamorous lifestyle, but why would they follow AI bots like Sofia instead?

Source: Milia Sofia/ Instagram

These new AI accounts often seem to be copying real-world influencers without giving credit, and they also use publicly available visual data. It’s difficult to predict where it will lead, but it’s evident that AI is influencing and changing the landscape of online influencers.