AI Stories / AI Storytelling

Submission 3,733

Part of a series on AI Video. [View Related Entries]

About

AI Stories or AI Storytelling refers to a series of AI videos on TikTok and Instagram that use AI-generated images, voices and stories (which are often based on real events and people, such as "true crime" stories) to make a seemingly uncanny video in which an AI-generated character narrates their story, showing the still image's mouth moving. AI Stories on TikTok inspired various reactions, memes and viral discourse in mid-2023, mostly due to the hyperbolic plots of the stories that usually involved the character dying or suffering from a strange tragedy. One viral example is of a baby telling a story about his mother putting him inside a microwave, killing him. The stories are seemingly generated using ChatGPT. The videos from five main TikTok pages, People's Tales (@storyinventory), Imagined Tales (@imaginedtales), AIStoryHub (@aistoryhub), Eternal Stories AI (@eternalstoriesai) and Remembered Tales (@rememberedtales), spread across social media platforms like Twitter in June 2023.

Origin

On May 2nd, 2023, the TikTok^[1] account People's Tales (@storyinventory) posted a video that animated an AI-generated image of late rapper Tupac Shakur, essentially telling a version of his life's story generated through an AI chatbot. Over the course of one month, the video gained roughly 19,900 plays and 560 likes (shown below, left). The video is currently the first known of the AI Stories format. On May 6th, 2023, the TikTok^[2] account People's Tales (@storyinventory) uploaded its first video to go viral, receiving roughly 605,700 plays and 25,500 likes in one month (shown below, right). The video told an AI-generated version of Juliane Koepcke's 1971 survival story.^[3]

Spread

Going into May 2023, People's Tales (@storyinventory) on TikTok continued to upload videos which soon gained more virality. For instance, on May 16th, 2023, People's Tales posted a TikTok^[4] that gained roughly 13.1 million plays and 1.5 million likes in one month. It relayed an AI-generated story from the perspective of a baby who was killed by his mother after being put inside a microwave (shown below, left). As People's Tales gained traction, copycat accounts started to surface on the platform. For instance, on May 27th, 2023, the TikTok^[5] page Eternal Stories AI (@eternalstoriesai) posted its first video, gaining roughly 148,000 plays and 2,400 likes in one month. Eternal Stories AI uploaded another TikTok^[6] on May 27th that received roughly 3.3 million plays and 232,700 likes in one month (shown below, right). It told an AI-generated and hyperbolic version of Junko Furuta's 1988 murder.^[7]

Going in June 2023, the AI stories became more nonsensical and based on memes. For instance, on May 29th, 2023, Eternal Stories AI posted a TikTok^[8] that centered on John Pork, gaining roughly 1.2 million plays and 117,900 likes in one month (shown below, left). On June 13th, 2023, a new AI Stories account, Remembered Tales (@rememberedtales), posted a TikTok^[9] that centered on Maegan Hall, the Tennessee Police Officer, gaining roughly 2.9 million plays and 245,700 likes in 17 days (shown below, right).

As the AI Stories accounts gained eminence on TikTok in June 2023, reposts of the videos, that essentially made fun of them, surfaced on the app. For instance, on June 4th, 2023, TikToker^[10] @ma___teja posted a screen recording of them scrolling through various AI Stories, gaining roughly 124,000 plays and 2,400 likes in three weeks (shown below).

Reposts and videos, such as screen recordings like the aforementioned video, were then shared on Instagram^[11] and Twitter^[12] in June 2023, additionally going viral on the new platforms.