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The rise of generative AI has brought about a paradigm shift, leaving both artists and music fans scrambling to differentiate between what is real and what is artificial.
Gone are the days when online sleuths were concerned about whether someone was “fake” playing or using a backing track (that’s so 2025). Now, it’s all about whether the guitarist on screen is even human, or just a figment of machine learning and algorithms.
But even the machines have to learn from real players, as guitarist, songwriter, and social media influencer Sophie Burrell found out the hard way.
“I was scrolling on TikTok and got recommended a video of a ‘girl’ playing guitar,” Burrell tells Guitar World. “It was identical to my setup. Same camera angle, same room, same guitar, same movements. It took me less than a second to realize it was literally my video, except I’d been replaced by an AI-generated character.”
Initially, she found it funny. But that soon turned into frustration and anger when she realized that audiences were engaging with these AI-generated videos – at the expense of her reputation and years of hard work.
“It honestly feels like a Black Mirror episode,” she says. “It blows my mind that instead of learning an instrument or developing a skill, people would rather steal someone else’s work, slightly alter it with AI, and then take credit for it themselves.
“I’m angry that people can steal my content without my consent, replace me entirely using AI, repost it without crediting me, gain attention from it, and then use the engagement to funnel people towards whatever they’re selling – which is usually something inappropriate.”
Feeling helpless after social media platforms failed to act, Burrell went public with a video that has since gone viral. Turns out, her case wasn’t a lone incident but the latest in an onslaught of disturbing AI-generated playing videos specifically targeting female guitarists and their fans.
Sophie Lloyd is no stranger to the guitar world, having crafted videos that rack up millions of views, built a community of millions of fans, launched a solo career, and toured the world with the likes of MGK. Her high-profile public persona has led to her videos being targeted and, in some cases, being manipulated by bad actors to defraud victims.
“I’ve received dozens of emails from people claiming they’ve been speaking with me over video calls for months – clearly scammers using AI impersonation,” she says. “Some of the situations are genuinely devastating, with people being scammed out of large amounts of money.
“The idea that our music and content can be stolen so easily is really disheartening. We rely on interactions with our content for visibility, monetisation, and opportunities. It’s literally our livelihood being stolen, and platforms need to start treating it that way.”
Brazilian breakout star Larissa Liveir agrees. She is also undergoing the futile experience of reporting these videos, only to realize they’ve instead multiplied without any punitive action.
“I started feeling violated because I realized that anyone can take my image and do whatever they want with it, even things that go completely against my values,” she says. “They can put me in clothes I would never wear, create overly sexualized poses that I would never choose, or make it seem like I said or did things that were never actually me.
“I’ve seen them alter some of these women’s images to expose more of their bodies and drastically change their physical features in order to sexualize them without their consent. TikTok often says there’s nothing wrong with accounts using my name, my photos, AI-generated content, and comments asking people to message them privately, even though that obviously leads to private conversations where people can be manipulated and scammed.”
In some cases, bad actors go one step further to damage these guitarists’ reputations.
Tanya Yakimova is a guitarist, performer and content creator from Odesa, Ukraine, with over 1.7 million followers on Instagram alone. She claims: “Some people were using these fake videos to build trust with my fans and then attempt to scam them out of money. I have seen screenshots where scammers, pretending to be me, asked fans to send money or purchase Apple gift cards and account credits.”
After we conducted our interview, Yakimova’s team reached out with more unsettling news. “Recently, we discovered several Telegram groups dedicated to AI-generated explicit content, where Tanya’s face is being inserted into pornographic videos, GIFs, and images without her consent. Some of these groups contain hundreds of pieces of content.
l’m lumped in with fake players, when I’ve had a real music career, touring and recording for almost 15 years
Becky Baldwin
“What is also concerning is that users in these groups somehow share and distribute real personal information about Tanya. We do not know where this information is coming from, but it adds another disturbing layer to the situation.”
While the forms and severity of the fraud and abuses vary between players, the fact that it is overwhelmingly female-presenting guitarists' and bassists’ videos being appropriated suggests a sort of AI-facilitated honeytrap, with an added layer of overt misogyny.
The actions seem intended to either degrade these players and put their reputations in jeopardy, have a financial motivation in defrauding and scamming fans – or both.
“The rock, metal and guitar world is still heavily male-dominated, and when you look at the motives behind a lot of these profiles (especially the ones promoting NSFW sites), it makes sense that they target women,” notes Burrell.
“They’re using female musicians to attract attention from a male audience, often older people, who might not realize what they’re looking at is AI-generated.”
Mercyful Fate bassist Becky Baldwin has also had her image used in deepfakes and AI-generated videos intended to defraud fans. She notes that “social media companies are not interested in protecting women. Women playing instruments gain traction on social media. They attract a lot of male followers.
![Seek and Destroy - Metallica [Bass Cover by Becky Baldwin] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/cUG8G1GaNis/maxresdefault.jpg)
“When attractive, scantily clad fake women are being generated on a massive scale to make money for an unknown person, it makes me extremely concerned for everyone’s mental wellbeing.”
Because of the wild west that is AI-generated playing videos, she feels “lumped in with fake players,” when, in reality, “people who follow me know that I have had a real music career, touring and recording for almost 15 years.”
Mari Zaghete, a 19-year-old Brazilian guitarist, singer and content creator, first noticed the phenomenon in clips from other players in her circle. However, it wasn’t long before bad actors started targeting her videos. “The audio was the same, the setting, the facial expressions, the dynamics of the performance – only with a different face superimposed using AI,” she says.
Zaghete believes that playing content, carefully crafted by female-presenting guitarists, is particularly easy to target because, aside from the image, “There’s [also] movement, technique, hand speed, performance, iconic songs… so these are videos that capture attention very quickly.
“Instrumental performance videos are easy to reuse because the focus is on the music and the visuals, not necessarily on the person speaking. That makes it easier for people using AI to replace the real artist’s image with an artificial character without the audience noticing.”
For Lloyd, though, “the bigger issue isn’t the gender bias – it’s the theft of copyrighted content and identity.” Indeed, laws relating to AI are practically non-existent or limited in most countries and jurisdictions.
In the US, Executive Order 14365 pushes for a “single national framework” for AI, though critics argue that it does little to address copyright and privacy concerns. In 2025, Congress passed the TAKE IT DOWN Act, aimed at non-consensual intimate imagery and deepfakes posted online and typically made with the assistance of AI.
Earlier this year, the Senate passed the DEFIANCE Act, which, if passed into law, would give victims the right to sue over deepfake pornography.
Across the pond, the European Union “lacks specific rules on the copyrightability of AI-generated works.” While in 2024 it enacted the Artificial Intelligence Act – widely regarded as the world's most comprehensive AI regulatory framework, especially at the time – the EU has been criticized for narrowing and softening some of the Act’s original obligations, particularly when it comes to copyright transparency and compliance requirements.
One thing all of the players involved have in common – aside from their gender – is their struggle to get the social media firms to take action. “The problem isn’t the technology itself, but rather how we use it,” says Zaghete.
I still believe AI can be an amazing tool – but it needs to be properly supervised and regulated
Sophie Lloyd
“AI can be an incredible tool when used properly. The issue arises when it’s used without transparency, without authorization, and without protection for the original creator. Clearly, social media platforms aren’t keeping up with the speed at which this is growing.”
Metal guitarist and content creator Lauryn Leroy, known online as Lauryn’s Guitar, adds, “[When reporting], it’s hard to get through to a real person who understands what the issue is. Platforms need to be more transparent about AI-generated content and give creators better ways to protect their content from being easily manipulated.”
Ultimately, though, the solution is far from simple, especially now that this Pandora’s box has been opened. Some artists, like Baldwin, are calling for a complete boycott.
“We should keep talking about how social media companies should take responsibility and at least clearly mark AI content, or ideally, allow us to block AI content from our feed,” she says. “We should not be funding social media companies through advertising while they are refusing to keep their users safe.”
Others recognize that AI can be leveraged – with limitations and boundaries. “I still believe AI can be an amazing tool for learning, creativity, and enhancing people’s craft, but it needs to be properly supervised and regulated,” says Lloyd. “There should absolutely be stronger copyright laws and protections surrounding AI-generated content and impersonation.”
Leroy emphasizes the need for platforms to be “more transparent about AI-generated content and give creators better ways to protect their content from being easily manipulated.”
Ultimately, nothing will change until there are genuine financial and legal consequences for AI fraudsters. As Zaghete observes: “If AI-modified content were prevented from being monetized, there would be a major decline in this type of material.”
Guitar World reached out to Meta with a request for comment on what it’s actively doing to protect artists and creators in the new world of AI. A representative responded, “We want people to know when they see posts that have been made with AI. In 2024, we announced a new approach for labeling AI-generated content.
“An important part of this approach relies on industry-standard indicators that other companies include in content created using their tools, which help us assess whether something is created using AI.”
TikTok did not reply.
- Have you experienced a similar issue with AI-generated guitar playing videos, or been scammed yourself? Get in touch with the Guitar World team at guitarworld@futurenet.com if you’d like to share your story.
