Three Arizona women have filed a lawsuit against a group of men that alleges they used the women’s photos to make AI porn influencers, then offered online courses showing others how to do it.Just over a year ago, MG was living the typical life of a young woman in her twenties in Scottsdale, Arizona. She held a job as a personal assistant and supplemented her income by waiting tables on weekends. Like many women her age, she maintained an Instagram account where she would sporadically post Stories and photos of her daily life – sipping matcha, lounging by the pool with friends, or attending Pilates classes.
“I never really had the intention to become a social media sensation,” says MG, who is referred to only by her initials in a lawsuit to protect her identity. “I used it as most people did when it first emerged, as a platform to share snippets of my life with those closest to me.” With a little over 9,000 followers, MG had a substantial following, but it was far from being a colossal platform.
However, her life took a shocking turn last summer when she received a direct message from one of her followers. The message contained a link to photos and videos of a woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to MG, circulating on Instagram. Clicking on the link, MG was horrified to see multiple Reels featuring what seemed to be her face superimposed onto a body identical to her own. The woman in the photos was scantily dressed, with tattoos identical to MG’s.
“It was a chilling realization that I had no control over my own image,” she said. “If you didn’t know me well, you could easily mistake them for images of me.” Her horror escalated when she discovered that these manipulated images of her, either nude or scantily clad, were not only circulating on the internet but were also being used to advertise AI ModelForge, a platform that instructs men on how to create their own AI influencers.
According to MG’s recently filed complaint, the platform offered a series of online classes and tutorials teaching subscribers how to use a software called CreatorCore. This software was used to train AI models using photos of unsuspecting young women, with the resulting content being posted on Instagram and TikTok.
“They provided a complete guide, including advice on how to select the right person who wouldn’t be able to defend themselves. They even gave instructions on what type of women to target and where to source their pictures,” she alleges. “It was repugnant on every conceivable level.”
MG is one of three plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in January in Arizona against three Phoenix men: Jackson Webb, Lucas Webb, and Beau Schultz, as well as 50 unidentified individuals. The lawsuit alleges that these men trawled the internet for photos of unsuspecting young women, then used AI to generate photos and videos of fictitious models who bore an uncanny resemblance to them. This content was then sold on the subscription platform Fanvue.
The lawsuit further alleges that for a monthly fee of $24.95 on the platform Whop, these men sold online courses training other men, including the unidentified individuals named in the suit, on how to create their own AI-generated influencers using real women’s photos. The men are accused of creating “Blueprints” for how to scrape images from women’s social media accounts, a practice that has left MG and countless others feeling violated and powerless.
