Be aware – AI deepfake scammers of women guitar influencers are on the rise
From plagiarism to miming, the online guitar space has been rife with controversy in recent years. Unfortunately, things might have just gotten even worse; guitarist Sophie Burrell has discovered that an AI ‘influencer’ is regularly generating deepfake replicas of her content.
In a new interview with Guitar World, Burrell recalls the first time she encountered one of her AI counterparts. “I was scrolling on TikTok and got recommended a video of a ‘girl’ playing guitar,” she says. “It was identical to my setup. Same camera angle, same room, same guitar, same movements. It took me less than a second to realise it was literally my video, except I’d been replaced by an AI-generated character.”
READ MORE: “I patently refuse to use AI in my music creation”: Billy Corgan calls AI “a deal with the devil” that could “wipe out” generations of songwriters
Around the time, Burrell shared her discovery with her followers by comparing her own video with the AI replica. Just as she explains to Guitar World, everything is a perfect parallel, right down to her facial expressions. Though, there are a few tell-tale signs of it being AI – namely the finger placement, with AI infamously having issues with consistently generating fingers.
“She is so good that she can even do bends without putting her fingers on the fretboard – why didn’t I think of that!” Burrell joked.
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Despite the uncanny performance and slightly bodged fretwork, the AI influencer has steadily gained traction. “It honestly feels like a Black Mirror episode,” Burrell tells Guitar World. “It blows my mind that instead of learning an instrument or developing a skill, people would rather steal someone else’s work, slightly alter it with AI, and then take credit for it themselves.
“I’m angry that people can steal my content without my consent, replace me entirely using AI, repost it without crediting me, gain attention from it, and then use the engagement to funnel people towards whatever they’re selling – which is usually something inappropriate,” she adds.
To add insult to injury, Burrell has had to defend herself against AI accusations in the past. A video of her trying to make her riffs sound like Beethoven got a particularly high influx of “fake!!” claims, with Burrell having to post a stripped back version. In it, she only performs with a metronome.
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“I don’t want you to ever think of me as someone who fakes my playing,” she later commented on the Instagram post. “I’d rather show you my stuff with mistakes and me sounding sloppy, than deliver something inauthentic. So this is me and this is what it sounds like.”
The stripped back performance video is serving as one of the only ways to prove your genuine skill – even viral shredder Ichika Nito was forced to post a one-take, no edits performance back in February to prove his innocence against “fake” performance accusations.
Elsewhere in the Guitar World interview, Machine Gun Kelly guitarist Sophie Lloyd also spoke out about her own experience with AI cloning her work and using her likeness. “I’ve received dozens of emails from people claiming they’ve been speaking with me over video calls for months – clearly scammers using AI impersonation,” she says. “Some of the situations are genuinely devastating, with people being scammed out of large amounts of money.”
“The idea that our music and content can be stolen so easily is really disheartening,” she continues. “We rely on interactions with our content for visibility, monetisation, and opportunities. It’s literally our livelihood being stolen, and platforms need to start treating it that way.”
Back in 2025, Joe Bonamassa shared his own fears of generative AI scamming his fans. The guitarist shared a deepfake based on an old 2021 clip of himself, which, though slightly robotic, felt unnervingly uncanny. “This is so fucked up,” Bonamassa wrote at the time. “An AI generated designed to mislead and scam people. Please be aware… 2025 is a scary time my friends.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
