The band that has millions of listeners and is the future of k-pop, but its members don’t exist

They are 11, their video clips have millions and millions of views on YouTube, they have countless fans, they are the promise of kpop and, despite this, eternities do not exist.

eternity is a Korean pop band made up entirely of virtual idols. Their singers are not people of flesh and blood, they are holograms or avatars created by artificial intelligence.

They were designed by Pulse9 company in 2021 and their leader is the guitarist and singer Yeoreum. They only have 4 main songs, but all of them with a lot of views and plays on the internet.

His single “DTDTGMGN,” for example, has amassed nearly 6.5 million views on YouTube. A rather enviable number. “No Filter”, about 3 and a half.

The mind behind Eternity

Before telling how they made Eternity, let’s see what the group’s CEO said about the stars he controls.

For Jiun Park, the woman who manages the project, “Eternity is a new kind of business”. He was even encouraged to talk about “a new kind of genre”.

Having a band of holograms has its perks, Park understands. “While K-pop stars often struggle with physical limitations or mental anguish because they’re human beings, virtual artists are free from it.”

She is very clear about the business. Kpop is one of the most profitable genres (not to mention the fortunes amassed by bands like BTS or Blackpink) and many times, according to the CEO, scandals around their “real” stars can be a risk.

This is why the new virtual idols minimize the risks to which live singers are exposed, who sometimes live under the strong pressure of industry demands.

How did they create Eternity?

The faces of the band members were created by deep learning algorithm technology company o deep learning call Press9.

With Park as executive director and team leader, during the creation of Eternity Pulse9 he generated 101 amazing faces divided into 4 categories: cute, sexy, innocent and smart.

They then asked various kpop fans to pick their favorites and the designers set to work based on that. They cheered the winners based on what the audience chose. an idol factory on request.

Then, in the typical virtual performances of K-pop stars, such as live chats, videos or virtual fan meetings, the faces of these avatars are projected in a deepfake way on the bodies of anonymous singers, actors and dancers hired by Impulso9.

The dangers of deepfakes

The deepfake is an artificial intelligence technique that allows you to edit fake videos of people that look real using unsupervised learning algorithms, known in Spanish as RGA (Antagonistic Generative Network), and already existing videos or photos.

As the technique became popular, fears grew that its technology could be used to manipulate images of people without their permission or generate fake news. For example, in recent years many women have reported having their faces shown in pornographic films.

In this sense, Park Jieun stated that he always tries to clarify that Eternity is made up of fictional charactersas Pulse9 adheres to the ethical guidelines on avatars and artificial intelligence developed by the European Union.