Lizzie Yeo, the honorary virtual human ambassador for Korean Tourism Organization, is currently in talk for her uncanny resemblance to a famous girl group member, Irene of Red Velvet.
Lee Byung-hoon of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Culture and Gymnasium Committee, said in a parliamentary audit of the Korean Tourism Organization today, "It's good to introduce virtual humans, but there are some problems such as infringement of portrait rights and illegal purchases of followers."
Lee Byung-hoon also asked, "I see Irene's and other celebrities' faces in the video. Did they sign a contract for this?", He continued, "There's also a bigger problem than Lizzie Yeo. It's that the Korean Tourism Organization purchased some number of followers. We checked the accounts and the operator said the purchase was done through a marketing agency as one of the processes to promote the account. But shouldn't the Korean Tourism Organization be responsible for this?"
According to JTBC's report the previous day, most of the followers of Lizzie Yeo's account have been confirmed to be 'fake accounts' that were purchased with money. The number of fake accounts that are following Lizzie Yeo's account is confirmed 3,000 last month and has reached 5,100 this month.
Vice President of the Korean Tourism Organization, Shin Sangyong, explained, "We have the responsibility to manage more thoroughly. This shouldn't have happened and we have taken stern measures regarding this matter". An official representative from the organization said, "We confirmed that the agency runs these fake accounts without consultation with the corporation. We have deleted 8,100 followers now. We are currently considering taking legal action against the agency."
In an interview with press, the corporation claimed, "We analyzed and combined 50,000 combinations of eyes, nose, and lips that the MZ generation prefers when we create Lizzie Yeo. We did not originally create it with Irene in mind"
-The resemblance is so uncanny that it gets me goosebumps all over my body...
-It's very cheap of them to purchase illegal fake accounts to follow their account...
-She doesn't really look like Irene in the video but did they really have to generate a virtual human...?
-So you're telling me the girl in the video is not a real human but just a CG...? That's terrifying...
-I don't think they only used Irene's face because she looks like other celebrities in some other scenes. That's very low of them. What's wrong with them?
-She looks like the combination of Irene and Joy...
-I just watched the video and it looks like they use Irene's face as the base and add a layer of Joy's face with an opacity of 30%ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-She looks like a different person in different scenes. It's really scary.
-Stop generating virtual humans. It's very terrifying and makes me uncomfortable every time I see articles like thisㅠㅠ
-Is that even legal? This is getting me goosebumps all over my body...
-I would think it's just Irene if the title didn't say it was a virtual human...
-They should've just used their money to hire a real model for the video...
-Why are they always trying to shift the blame to the MZ Gen every time they have the chance to...
-What makes this any different than deep-fakes...?
