For the release of his twelfth album, “The Life of a Showgirl”, Taylor Swift sent fans on an online treasure hunt this weekend, which started by looking for “Taylor Swift” on Google. But while fans have unveiled secret videos in the campaign, some worried that the clips seemed to have generated AI – and they were not satisfied.
Google search for the singer’s name gives a cryptic message: “12 cities, 12 doors, 1 video to unlock”.
The fans had to understand the location of the doors, then find them physically and scan a QR code, which surfaced 12 unique videos that contained the necessary clues to resolve the puzzle. When the fans went to googled the right sentence, another orange door appeared, on which fans had to “strike” collectively by clicking on 12 million times. Finally, the “open” door, revealing a lyrical video for “The Fate of Ophelia”, which has its own orange door progression bar on YouTube.
YouTube had marked the exclusive video for the song, as well as the lyric videos of the remaining songs of the new album.
Google initially announced the treasure hunt in an Instagram video. The video begins with an aerial view of the earth, then zooms out quickly on a hilly and jewelry landscape, until we saw an orange door, superimposed with a Google search bar.
While Swifies like a puzzle, some were rubbed in the wrong direction by the 12 videos containing clues, which seemed to be generated by AI.
Instead of searching for clues to unveil the new Lyric video of Swift, as Swift wanted, some fans began to browse video clips like detectives, looking for signs that the scenes were synthetic. However, although there are clips that seem generated by computer, it is not clear if they have been manufactured using an AI, and if so, to what extent.
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It would be logical that these videos were generated using Google IA products. As Openai shows her new Sora 2 videos generator, this Taylor Swift collaboration would be a fortuitous opportunity for Google to show millions of Swifies which his model Veo 3 can do.
Google did not respond to Techcrunch’s demand to comment on how these videos were generated or if Swift and Google worked together on this activation using the own Google IA technology. But the Swift and Google team have teamed up with similar promotional activities in the past, we have to note.
The use of AI in creative works is a sensitive subject. Some artists think that these tools can help them, while others have protested the way in which large -language models are trained on their work without consent, effectively using artists’ own work to create technology that could threaten their livelihoods.
Even Swift herself spoke of the dangers of AI after President Donald Trump shared an image generated by AI-A-Son support for his campaign last year; The incident encouraged him to publish an approval from the former vice-president Kamala Harris, who ran against Trump in 2024.
“Recently, I was informed that the AI of” me “falsely approving the presidential race of Donald Trump was published on his site. It really mentioned my fears around AI, and the dangers of disinformation. This led me to the conclusion that I must be very transparent about my real plans for this election as a voter, “she wrote on Instagram at the time.
The controversy around the possible use of AI by SWIFT is amplified given its own stature in the music industry.
While AI can appeal to certain artists as a means of reducing costs, the billionaire musician has all the possible resources at his disposal to give life to the fantastic scenes of his promotional videos.
