AI Gets a Human Face: Character.AI Unveils AvatarFX Model for Turning Bots into Animated Characters

Character.AI, a platform that specializes in user interactions and role-playing with AI-generated characters, has unveiled a model for generating AvatarFX videos.

Image source: x.com/character_ai

AvatarFX is currently in closed beta, and it lets you animate characters on the platform in a variety of styles and voices — from humanoids to 2D cartoon animals. Unlike competing solutions like OpenAI Sora, AvatarFX isn’t just a text-based video generator. Users can create videos based on existing static images, such as animating photos of real people.

These solutions leave a lot of room for abuse, TechCrunch points out: Unscrupulous users could start uploading photos of celebrities or people they know in real life, so that the virtual character will say or do something incriminating. Technologies for creating convincing deepfakes have been around for years, but their inclusion in popular consumer products like Character.AI only exacerbates the threat.

Last year, a tragic incident occurred when a Game of Thrones AI character created on the Character.AI platform interacted with a 14-year-old American teenager. In response, the service’s administration added parental controls and additional security features to the app. The company did not comment on possible abuses of AvatarFX.