TikTok is a social media platform that allows users to create, share, and learn from other short videos that usually can be up to 60 seconds long. It was launched in September 2017 and was developed by the Chinese tech company Byte Dance. TikTok, just like many other social media platforms, uses AI algorithms to enhance user experience and content discovery.
The way TikTok works is that it has a format called FYP which stands for ‘for you page’ which is where all the content is shown. It is mostly known for its emphasis on creativity and entertainment through short videos where usually users are able to lip-sync to songs, create short skits, daily vlogs, participate in challenges, and using various filters/effects. The ‘For You Page’ is an important feature as it customizes content recommendations for users based on their interactions with the app, encouraging a personalized and engaging experience. TikTok has a diverse and active user base and is also known for many viral challenges and other trends as these users participate by creating videos that follow a specific theme or a certain hashtag and users are able to follow, like, comment, and share.
When it comes to AI in TikTok, tools like automatic editing, music suggestions, and special effects help enhance videos. There are also automatic captions which are generated to become more accessible to a wider audience as well as translating it from one language to another. To keep a safe platform, AI algorithms are able to identify and remove any content that is a violation towards the community guidelines. This could include content that is offensive, inappropriate, or in violation of copyright. As most platforms update over time, TikTok will evolve with new developments and more resources for its users, this way it gains an even wider audience and newer trends that will involve AI.
Trends
When it comes down to investigating the trends, there have been a lot of examples of the use of AI. For example, there are AI story times, Reddit story times, video creators acting like AI, effects that use AI, and editing apps like cap cut that work with TikTok to generate AI babies.
AI Storytimes
Generating a short story is now easy with the help of AI. TikTok users are able to use it to their advantage as there are many AI stories on TikTok with the hashtag #aistories, not only does it involve a story made by AI but also by generating images/videos of characters that fit the descriptions of the characters in the stories.
AI avatars
On TikTok, it is also possible to create your own TikTok avatar. “Create AI avatars with TikTok! Take your TikTok profile to the next level with AI-generated avatars!” Creating an avatar on TikTok is like another representation of who you are and is considered more useful than a normal profile picture, for example, if not showing your identity is what you want when recording a video, then an avatar is what you need.
With the use of AI, I generated a character of a young girl through Gen Craft and with the help of the app Dream Face I was able to generate the girl to sing, which shows how easy it is to generate these AI images and videos and post them online, which the main source is TikTok and where it seems to become more of a trend. Especially if you add money into it, you can generate just about anything with the help of AI.
These are only a few examples of what AI can do and how humans are able to use it. With social media platforms, it is easy to use AI and generate videos/photos and post them online which end up taking minutes to become trendy, therefore making these apps as well as AI more popular. Also, involving AI within the apps makes it more beneficial for the apps themselves as they are able to modernize themselves and update with more creativity for users.
This article was published as part of the CLAB project conducted by NewsLabTurkey and Bilgi University Faculty of Communication under the supervision of Dr. Sarphan Uzunoğlu.
