AI-Generated Fake Fortnite Clips Fool Viewers

Google's latest AI tool, Veo 3, has made waves with its ability to generate incredibly realistic Fortnite gameplay videos from simple text prompts. Launched this week, Veo 3 has caught the attention of the gaming community and beyond for its dystopian capability to create life-like video clips complete with realistic audio.

Other AI tools like OpenAI's Sora have been generating similar content, but Veo 3's inclusion of lifelike audio marks a significant, if unsettling, advancement. Within just two days of its release, users have started producing Fortnite gameplay videos featuring a simulated streamer's commentary. The quality is so convincing that these clips could easily be mistaken for authentic content from platforms like YouTube or Twitch while scrolling through social media.

From a technical standpoint, Veo 3 is not designed to infringe on copyrighted material. However, it's evident that the AI has been trained on the vast amount of Fortnite gameplay available online, enabling it to generate highly realistic representations. A notable example is a clip created with the prompt, "Streamer getting a victory royale with just his pickaxe," which showcases a streamer celebrating a win using only their pickaxe.

Interestingly, the prompt doesn't explicitly mention Fortnite, yet Veo 3 accurately interprets the context to generate the correct game footage. This capability raises significant concerns beyond copyright issues, particularly around the potential for creating disinformation and undermining trust in genuine content.

Reactions on social media highlight the unease: "I can not tell if this is real or not," and "We're cooked," among others. Some speculate that Veo 3 must have been trained on an immense amount of Fortnite content, possibly including everything uploaded to YouTube, despite copyright restrictions.

IGN has reached out to Epic Games for comment on this matter.

To showcase Veo 3's versatility beyond gaming, a clip demonstrating a fake news report on a non-existent automobile trade show, complete with fabricated interviews, was shared online. This further underscores the AI's broad potential and the ethical questions it raises.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is exploring similar territory with its Muse program, which was recently trained on extensive footage of the Xbox game Bleeding Edge. Xbox executive Phil Spencer has suggested that Muse could assist in ideating game concepts and contribute to game preservation. However, the unveiling of Muse-generated footage of Quake 2 has sparked discussions about the impact on human creativity and employment within the gaming industry.

Fortnite itself has embraced AI technology, introducing a feature that allows players to interact with Darth Vader using generative AI trained on the voice of James Earl Jones. This feature, which is officially licensed and sanctioned by Jones' estate, has nonetheless drawn criticism and an unfair labor practice charge from SAG-AFTRA.