Taylor Swift fans accuse singer of using AI in her Google scavenger hunt videos

For the release of her twelfth album, “The Life of a Showgirl”, Taylor Swift sent fans this weekend on an online scavenger -yacht, who started searching for “Taylor Swift” on Google. But when fans revealed secret videos as part of the campaign, some were worried that the clips looked like they were being generated and they were not satisfied.

A Google search for the name of the singer yields a cryptic message: “12 cities, 12 doors, 1 video to unlock.”

Fans had to find out the location of the doors, then find them physically and scan a QR code, showing up 12 unique videos that contain the instructions needed to solve the puzzle. When fans googled the right sentence, another orange door appeared, which fans had to “knock” collectively by clicking 12 million times. Finally, the door revealed “opened”, a text video revealing for “The fate of Ophelia‘He has his own orange door progress bar on YouTube.

YouTube had the Video exclusively for the trackAs well as the text videos of the remaining songs on the new album.

Google initially announced the treasure hunt in one Video on Instagram. The video starts with an aerial photo of the earth and then quickly zooms in on a hilly, jewelry Landscape, until we see an orange door, overloaded with a Google search bar.

While Swifties love a puzzle, Some were rubbed on the wrong side by the 12 instruction-containing videos, which seemed to be generated.

Instead of looking for clues to reveal the new lyrical video of Swift, as Swift was planning, some fans started searching the video clips such as detectives, looking for signs that the scenes were synthetic. Although there are clips that are generated by the computer, it is unclear whether they were made using AI, and if so, to what extent.

It would be useful if these videos were generated using the AI ​​products from Google. While OpenAI is showing off with its new Sora 2 -video generator, this Taylor Swift cooperation would be a serendipite chance for Google to show millions of Swifties what the VEO 3 model can do.

Google did not respond to TechCrunch’s request to comment on how these videos were generated or that Swift and Google worked on this activation with the help of Google’s own AI technology. But the Swift and Google team worked together in the past for similar promotional activities, we have to notice.

The use of AI in creative works is a sensitive subject. Some artists think that these tools can help them, while others protest against the way large language models are trained at their work without permission, which effectively uses the work of artists to create the technology that can threaten their livelihood.

Even Swift himself spoke about the dangers of AI after President Donald Trump had shared an AI-generated image of her support for his campaign last year; The incident encouraged her to recommendation For former Vice President Kamala Harris, who ran into Trump in 2024.

“I recently became aware that AI of ‘I’ the presidential run of Donald Trump was wrongly endorsed on his site. It really called for my fears around AI, and the dangers of distributing wrong information. It brought me to the conclusion that I must be very transparent about my real plans for this election as a voting” “” She wrote At that time on Instagram.

The controversy surrounding the possible use of Swift from AI is reinforced given its own status in the music industry.

Although AI can address some artists as a way to save costs, the billionaire musician has all the possible source at her disposal to bring the fantastic scenes of her promotional videos to life.