Celebrities Doing AI Yearbook Trend Raises One Major Problem

A new trend among social media and smartphone users is the AI Yearbook. But with artificial intelligence and usage rights flagged as concerns during the recent WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, why are some celebrities taking part?

The yearbook trend allows users to upload eight to 12 images of themselves into the AI photo app Epik, which will then create up to 60 different AI pictures of them in a 1990s nostalgic throwback style.

Epik costs, on average, $5.99, although it has been seen at as little as $3.99 in a sale. Other apps on the market also offer similar AI features.

Celebrities, including actors Keke Palmer and Brec Bassinger and TV presenters Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager, have all jumped on the bandwagon.

New developments in AI, both in look and sound, have raised alarms for the entertainment sector.

Some actors pointed out on social media that by using the app to create the Yearbook photos, celebrities are signing away their likenesses and images for future use. This has called into question whether the simple-to-use app undermines the months of strikes.

General Counsel for SAG-AFTRA Jeffrey Bennett had previously issued a statement on AI replication that said: "SAG-AFTRA maintains that the right to digitally replicate a performer's voice or likeness to substantially manipulate a performance, or to create a new digital performance, is a mandatory subject of bargaining. In addition, the use of performer's voice, likeness or performance to train an artificial intelligence system designed to generate new visual, audio, or audiovisual content is a mandatory subject of bargaining."

Bennett added: "You cannot unilaterally impose terms in individual contracts that purport to grant these rights. We are entitled to bargain over the compensation and terms under which these rights are granted and used. It is our position that language in a performer's contract which attempts to acquire the rights noted above are void and unenforceable until terms have been negotiated with SAG-AFTRA. The rights have not been conveyed."

The full letter can be read here.

Bassinger shared a series of her AI Yearbook photos in a short TikTok video with the caption: "AI 90s yearbook photos (I about peed my pants at the bad ones - aka good investment) #AgostoDump #aiyearbook #aiyearbooktrend."

Model and influencer Valeria Lipovetsky shared her AI Yearbook photos with her 1.73 million followers on YouTube Shorts in a video that said how the AI images really "captured" her "personalities."

Palmer shared ten images on Instagram with the caption: "Idk y'all.. I feel like mine ain't me [laughing emoji] #AIYearbook" as well as an array of male transformation AI images of herself created via the app.

Newsweek reached out to SAG-AFTRA and Palmer's and Bassinger's publicists via email for comment. Newsweek has also contacted Epik for comment.

The fear for those in the entertainment industry is that lucrative likenesses of actors, singers, and performers could be used to create future work with no credit or financial compensation going to the creative and concerns for scripts and copywriting going to AI writing programs.

TV and film writer and director Caroline Renard posted on X (formerly Twitter): "The AI yearbook trend. We ain't never going to be free. We sitting up on strikes and trying to fight against AI technology and y'all just Willy nilly doing s*** like this."

Actor Brendan Noble wrote: "Actors in Hollywood: we need protections against AI. Also Actors in Hollywood: giving an app permission to use their likeness for 3 years because of a yearbook photo trend. Do you even read the disclaimer when paying $5.99 to sell your face for 3 years or???? #YearBookChallenge."

One social media user posted on X: "I love how SAG is trying to prevent AI from using actors' likenesses and then those actors are like "lol I bought an app to let AI make me look like I'm in a high school yearbook from 1992."

Another X user posted: "Why are all of these actors using AI for those weird yearbook pictures? I'm so confused a third of your strike demands are supposed to protect you from AI using your likeness??? and you're just promoting it for free???"

The posts continued to pour in, questioning why actors were taking part in AI Yearbook trend while also "striking against AI" with one X user calling it "mind-boggling."

This trend follows news of Tom Hanks recently warning fans against believing a video on Instagram that used AI to recreate his likeness without his consent or knowledge endorsing a dental plan.

Hanks is one of several celebrities whose voice or visual likeness was used for advertising material or content, including Taylor Swift, Bruce Willis, and the late Robin Williams.