A video of a woman in a yellow kurta reciting an Urdu couplet has gone viral with tens of millions of views accumulating in hours. However, the audience who cheered at the performance later realized that the woman is not real.
The viral clip was shared on Instagram by an account named @tanvijoshii_, which presents itself as belonging to a “Punjabi girl”. In the video, the woman smiles, takes the microphone and delivers the line: “Khaandani raees rakhte hain mijaaz naram apna… tumhara lehja bata raha hai ki tumhari daulat nayi nayi hai.”
The couplet loosely translates to: people with old wealth carry themselves with grace, while your tone reveals that your riches are new.
The reel went viral, surpassing 28 million views in a day. Comments brimming with commendations on how stinging the poetry is. Even its correct pronunciation was argued over by many users.
But with the admiration came a shocking discovery. Tanvi Joshi is a fictional character, an artificial intelligent model created to appear and sound like a human being.
Internet user started seeing familiar signs. Her skin was unnaturally perfect. Her voice appeared to alter in other clips on the profile. Slowly, questions began regarding whether the performance was real or not.
The reality was made more evident when a viral reel was commented by Marziya Shanu Pathan, a corporator in the Thane Municipal Corporation.
Aye thats my voiceeeeeeee, she wrote.
A few days ago, Pathan posted a video of one of her public appearances on her personal Instagram account where she recited the same couplet. Her initial posting got less than nine lakh views, a small fraction of what the AI generated clip did.
Her voice could be seen as being raised and overlaid on the artificial figure of Tanvi Joshi in the viral version, which made it seem like the virtual influencer was reading the poetry herself.
Pathan made this remark, and the impression of surprise followed. A large number of viewers mentioned that they were not aware that they were watching an artificial creation. Some were also worried that technology can now imitate the voice and performance of a person without their consent easily.
The episode outlines the increasing challenge of differentiating actual content and AI generated material. As digital faces and voices get ever more realistic, the issues of consent, ownership, and credit are coming to the fore.
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Who is to gain when a clip gains popularity? The individual who spoke or the narrative that created the viral moment? And how do ordinary viewers know when a person on their screen is not real?
To date, the video of Tanvi Joshi remains popular even as more users hear that it is possible that the applause was awarded to the wrong performer.
