It’s Not Just Music: AI is Coming for Comedians Too

Photo Credit: Comedian George Brett Olson and the AI impersonator stealing his jokes

It’s not just the music industry; comedians and other content creators are suffering some serious IP theft in the form of sexualized AI impersonators.

AI is targeting creatives, and it’s not exclusive to the music or literature industries. Now, multiple comedians are finding their entire bits copied word for word, spoken by a fake model avatar—always a well-endowed woman—and racking up hundreds of thousands of views.

Comedian and content creator George Brett Olson posted a breakdown on Instagram, accusing an AI-based Instagram account with over 300,000 followers of apparently ripping off his joke word for word. The fake comic even wore the same outfit (though modified for maximum sex appeal) and told the joke with the same venue background as Olson, even moving her arms at the same points in the clip that Olson did. The AI comic also has an OnlyFans page, because of course it does.

“AI stole my joke and my outfit,” said Olson. “You might be saying, ‘I’ve heard comedians talk about this already,’ but this is new—very new.”

Ironically, Olson’s joke was about the threat that AI poses to jobs and how billionaires like Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg are complicit.

“This is the most ironic thing that’s ever happened to me,” Olson noted.

Meanwhile, comedian Julia Jasunas posted a similar comparison on Instagram with an example of an AI-based account with around 250,000 followers telling one of her jokes, word-for-word—even down to the crowd work.

“So another AI bot just stole my joke,” said Jasunas. “I’ve seen a couple other videos of other comedians posting about the exact same problem, and the thing that’s the most concerning is these AI bots are going viral, and people think that they’re real people.”

Like the fake model stealing Olson’s jokes, the one Jasunas pointed out is also scantily clad for maximum sex appeal. “Who does comedy in Daisy Duke shorts?” Jasunas remarked.

“It’s incredibly unsettling that someone is using scantily clad AI-generated women to perform stolen jokes and generate profit from views and engagement, then funnel people toward an OnlyFans account for additional profit, all for a woman who doesn’t even exist!” said Jasunas. “No wonder there’s a male loneliness epidemic.”

Other comedians whose work has been wholly appropriated by AI models include Hannah Berner, Olivia Carter, and Char Ramtin. Both Olson and Jasunas said they have received no support from Meta regarding the matter.

“The craziest thing is that there’s no terms of service violations here,” said Olson. “We’re watching [social media leaders] in real time say, ‘Hey, we’re building something that’s going to destroy everything,’ and then watching them protect no one.”

To that end, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter: “I don’t think it’s practical for us to try and ban AI content from the platform. It’s going to be harder and harder to identify, and it’s not all bad content (though yes, there is plenty of slop). But we are very invested in trying to drive more traffic to original content creators, and if an AI creator is ripping off content wholesale, it would be good for us to work out what we can do about that. I’m not sure what it would be, but I’ll make sure to talk to the team and look into it.”

Meanwhile, a Meta spokesperson also told the outlet that the problem has impacted platforms like YouTube and TikTok and is not exclusive to Meta-owned platforms. Which, of course, provides no comfort to anyone.