The First Descendant Accused of Using AI to Impersonate Streamers

Over the weekend, a series of ads promoting The First Descendant appeared on TikTok via the game’s official account.

All these ads show a streamer talking about the game, but the Reddit user iHardlyTriHard collected some of the ads and posted a compilation of them, pointing out that all the streamers appear to have an AI voice.

One of the videos appears to show streamer DanieltheDemon, who confirmed his likeness was used without permission. “I have no affiliation or contract with The First Descendant. They stole my face/reactions from my most viral video and used AI to alter what my mouth is saying and a voice that is not mine. I did not consent to my image being used.”

Publisher Nexon issued a statement addressing the situation, stating the ads were submitted by users as part of a “TikTok Creative Challenge,” which TikTok describes as an “official monetization program for creators that turns their creativity into cash by creating user-generated content-style ads for their favorite brands.”

The statement claims the ads somehow passed TikTok’s own copyright violation checks and were approved as advertising content:

As part of our marketing campaign for Season 3, we recently launched a Creative Challenge program for TikTok creators, which allows them to voluntarily submit their content to be used as advertising material.

All submitted videos are checked by TikTok’s system for copyright violations before being approved as advertising content. However, we have become aware of instances where the circumstances surrounding the production of certain submitted videos appear inappropriate. Therefore, we are conducting a full investigation in collaboration with TikTok to establish the facts.

We sincerely apologize for the delay in providing this notice as the review is taking longer than expected. Once verification is complete, we will immediately share an update via an official notice.