What happened

Shanghai-based production company Youhug Media publicly announced the "signing" of two fully AI-generated digital actors named Lin Xiyan and Qin Lingyue to star in upcoming artificial intelligence-generated content (AIGC) microdramas. 

Chinese internet users and industry insiders quickly pointed out that the digital characters' faces appeared to be a "face fusion" (collaging features from multiple real people) that strongly resembled top Chinese stars such as Zhao Jinmai, Zhang Zifeng, and Liang Jie. 

The incident caused a furore, with actors, models, and creative artists fearing their likenesses and hard-earned professional identities were being systematically scraped and cloned into digital doubles without permission or compensation. 

Internet users also pointed to the loss of jobs that these, and similar, AI stars are likely to cause.

Why it happened

Under China's Civil Code, natural persons enjoy the right to their likeness, and without consent, no one may produce, use, or publicly disclose their likeness. In legal terms, "likeness" does not only refer to a complete facial image but also includes any "externally identifiable features" that allow the public to recognise a specific individual. 

However, the existing law had not been tested against AI-generated faces that approximate rather than directly copy real people, creating a transparency and accountability gap that companies could exploit.