--- title: "New AI Service Makes Fake Photos of You Hanging Out With Your Friends, Laughing and Having a Great Time" description: "A new app called Hotshot makes use of the power of AI to generate fake photos of you and your pals — regardless of whether they want to." date: "2023-05-07" modified: "2023-05-07" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-service-fake-photos-hanging-out-friends" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai" - "generative ai" - "the digest" --- # New AI Service Makes Fake Photos of You Hanging Out With Your Friends, Laughing and Having a Great Time ![It's called Hotshot, and from what we can tell, it's basically Bitmoji — but if Bitmoji was a hyperrealistic, AI-powered fever dream.]() *\Image: Aakash Sastry\* ## Fancy Salads Don't want to spend time with other humans, but still want to make it look like you're hanging out with your pals IRL? Boy, do we have just the thing. A new app called Hotshot makes use of the power of AI to generate fake photos of you and your pals — whether they agreed to the arrangement or not. "Imagine if Midjourney knew what your friends looked like... Introducing Hotshot!" [tweeted]() one of the app's cofounders Aakash Sastry. "Make photos with ANYONE IN YOUR CONTACTS doing ANYTHING." In a demonstration, Sastry shared some Hotspot-generated photos of himself and his cofounder together eating salads in a fancy restaurant. The results arguably leave a lot to be desired. The photos fall squarely in the uncanny valley, making both their faces appear like cartoonish AI interpolations. "Making memes of your friends," [reads]() the company's page on the app store, "has never been easier." https://twitter.com/aakashsastry/status/1653870120262070272 ## Involuntary Participation Of course, while we love goofy photos of our friends as much as the next guy, something about using an AI app to create images of you and your friends hanging out together — rather than just hanging out with them in real life — feels just a too little dystopian for our taste. Especially given the fact that face-to-face human interaction is more important than ever in a post-pandemic world, Hotshot feels a little like a regression. Besides, even if you don't live close to your friends, video chat programs like FaceTime and Zoom also exist. Users on Twitter weren't exactly impressed, calling the app "[pretty creepy]()." "My current friends would kill me if I tried this," another user [wrote](). "Rightly so." That said, skipping out on hanging with your friends may not have been the intention. Bitmoji, an app that allows you to turn yourself into your own emoji avatar, [did have a moment](), so maybe there is some appeal to this kind of AI app. At least, its creators also claim in the app's privacy policy that all user photos are deleted 24 hours after they're uploaded and will never be shared with any third-party platforms — which is [rarely a given]() these days. We won't stop you from generating images of you hanging out with your besties. But at least promise us that you'll try to eat salads with friends in real life sometimes, too. **More on AI:** [*Online Tutoring Company Stock Crashes as ChatGPT Steamrolls Its Business*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()