I’m Janie," says a curly-haired, bespectacled redhead, clasping her hands in front of her as she shyly addresses a camera from her dorm room.
asserted
she → ’m → room
"It’s day one of rush at the University of Alabama," Janie continues.
asserted
Janie → ’ → Alabama
Then, she lists off where she got each item of clothing she’s wearing: a pleated skirt from Abercrombie, a knit top from J. Crew, socks from Target and sneakers from Nike.
asserted
she → list → Nike
It’s Janie B's first video on her TikTok account, @jani.b086, and it’s a hit.
asserted
it → ’ → account
The video, posted on Aug. 8, has since amassed over 120,000 views.
asserted
video → post → views
Its comment section is full of users doting over the college freshman — the word "adorable" is used by at least a dozen commenters.
asserted
word → dot → commenters
Janie’s "outfit of the day" video, known online as an "OOTD," is a popular video format for the thousands of potential new members (PNMs) who document their experience going through the recruitment process for college sororities in an annual TikTok phenomenon known as "RushTok."
asserted
who → know → RushTok
But Janie isn’t like the other RushTok girls who vlogged their Bama Rush experience this year.
asserted
who → vlogge → experience
She doesn’t go to the University of Alabama.
asserted
She → go → Alabama
She didn’t rush a sorority.
asserted
She → rush → sorority
She didn’t even get her top from J. Crew or her sneakers from Nike.
asserted
She → get → Nike
Every detail of every video on Janie’s account, from her dorm room, to her outfits, to Janie herself, was generated by artificial intelligence.
asserted
detail → generate → intelligence
Olivia Moore, an investment partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, created Janie as an experiment to understand how consumers react to AI-generated content.
asserted
consumers → create → content
For only $100 in credits, Moore produced a week's worth of videos of her fake RushTok influencer participating in Bama Rush and observed as her audience argued whether Janie was real or not.
asserted
Janie → produce → Rush
The experiment showed how quickly some viewers could detect AI-generated content and how willing some were to continue watching even after they knew Janie wasn't real.
uncertain
Janie → show → content
Designing the Janie B. experiment
asserted
Designing → design → experiment
Moore is on the consumer investing team at Andreessen Horowitz where she invests in companies building consumer AI products.
asserted
she → invest → products
She says she has been fascinated by "how people make and interpret and understand AI content.
asserted
people → say → content
"
"The image, video, audio models are getting very human-like, very fast.
asserted
models → get → ?
I think we probably cross the uncanny valley in the next six months," Moore said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
asserted
Moore → think → Digital
"And so it means that how we as humans are able to detect AI-generated or AI-assisted content and how we interact with it is just going to become even more important because we're going to have a flood of this content, and it's going to be, in many cases, indistinguishable across all of our channels," she continued.
asserted
she → mean → channels
Moore said she created Janie as an experiment to see how consumers react to AI.
asserted
consumers → say → AI
What do people feel about AI content?
asserted
people → feel → content
What do they feel when they don't know it's AI?
asserted
it → feel → What
What do they feel when something they liked, or loved, or hated or were interested in turned out to be AI?"
asserted
they → feel → What
Moore primarily used ChatGPT and MiniMax to breathe life into her fake influencer.
asserted
Moore → use → influencer
She pulled a real video of a University of Alabama dorm room off of the internet and uploaded it to ChatGPT.
asserted
She → pull → ChatGPT
Then, she prompted Janie to have frizzy red hair, a pair of glasses and style from the 1960s.
asserted
she → prompt → 1960s
ChatGPT produced a still image of Janie in the real dorm room photo, and the "RushTok" influencer was born — or generated, at least.
asserted
influencer → produce → photo
For each TikTok, Moore animated Janie by feeding the still dorm room image into AI video model MiniMax H3.
asserted
Moore → animate → H3
She used ChatGPT to produce prompts to feed into MiniMax, shaping how Janie would move, what she would sound like and the scripts she would follow.
asserted
she → use → what
Moore chose RushTok to introduce her AI influencer to the world after watching the annual phenomenon for the past five years.
asserted
Moore → choose → years
She said it was "the perfect testing ground" for her experiment for several reasons.
asserted
it → say → reasons
Janie wouldn't be selling anything or hurting anyone, and RushTok naturally draws high traffic and has a low barrier to entry for new creators.
asserted
RushTok → sell → creators
With other PNMs participating in the trend, audiences would experience Janie alongside real humans posting similar content.
asserted
audiences → participate → content
Could TikTok tell Janie was AI-generated?
uncertain
Janie → tell → ?
On the first day of Alabama Rush, Moore introduced Janie to the world with an OOTD video.
asserted
Moore → introduce → video
Reactions to Janie were split in the comments.
asserted
Reactions → split → comments
"I would say anyone under maybe 25 immediately clocked her as AI," Moore said.
asserted
Moore → say → AI
"But anyone in the older demographic, which is much of the Bama Rush audience, was, I would say, fooled by her and just wishing her luck and sending her good thoughts in the process.
asserted
I → say → process
…and 31 more, not listed.
The Aporia
