(New York Times) – Influencers have long hawked supplements on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Increasingly, the influencers are fake.

With her modest white hair-covering and wire-rim spectacles, Melanskia is earnest, charming and quite convincing. She is also not real.

She is one of a handful of synthetic influencers created with artificial intelligence who are promoting an untested dietary supplement, Modern Antidote, which sells for just under $50 a jar. There is no disclosure on her account that everything about her is A.I.-generated.

Behind Melanskia is a genuine human being, Josemaria Silvestrini, who is part of a growing vanguard of entrepreneurs taking advantage of rapid advances in A.I. to promote their brands using people who don’t actually exist. (Read More)