“This is not cute”— Fans outraged as AI-morphed childhood photos of SEVENTEEN's Hoshi and Wonwoo gain ‘Spider’ singer’s attention 

On January 20, 2025, an AI-morphed video of SEVENTEEN’s Hoshi and Wonwoo was posted on Weverse. The short clip included childhood cutout photos of the two K-pop idols standing next to one other before hugging. This AI-generated video quickly became viral on other social media platforms.

The Spider singer's AI video caught Hoshi's attention on Weverse, as he commented "woah...crazy" on the shared post.

SEVENTEEN's followers were seemingly outraged by the morphed video, especially because it featured their childhood images. As a result, the group's fans stormed the internet with their criticism of the video, with one of them commenting:

“this is not cute stop using generative ai and ESPECIALLY don't make ai videos of children, we shouldn't have to explain how dangerous it is.”

Many other reactions to Hoshi and Wonwoo’s AI video were seen online. While some said it was “super disturbing,” others called it “weird and creepy.”

“gosh that looks super disturbing af.... Not only using AI for creating that video is already bad enough, but they make it worse by using the childhood pictures of them...,” wrote a fan.

“AI aside, having cutouts of the members as children is f**king weird and creepy as it is,” commented another fan.

“i could write so many essays on how maestro's message was poorly conveyed by the company and was not heard by so many fans and that appreciation for art and it's message is something kind of lacking around here but it would never hit like moments like these do,” stated an admirer.

“Wasnt the whole point of Maestro’s concept to be against AI…why are carats using it all the time i swear,” commented a fan.

Several fans highlighted the group’s album track MAESTRO, which they said was released by them as a criticism of AI. Others also referred to AI as “dangerous.”

“svt having a whole album dedicated to criticizing the ai dependent music industry and carats response is to create memes like wonwoo ai covers and ai generated vids .. don’t u get the point omg,” stated another fan.

“None of you who gas this up are alarmed? Don’t you realize what kind of things you can generate now with AI involving actual, real children? What this implies? Did Seventeen themselves not have Maestro as a warning/precaution?,” commented an admirer.

“seventeen has a whole concept about how ai is bad and here you all go! stop playing with this s**t, stop making these weird videos and ai covers, this damage them more than you all imagine. one day this will be used against them and we won't be able to fix that s**t,” wrote a fan.

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SEVENTEEN was reportedly accused of using AI in their songwriting

SEVENTEEN released their album 17 IS RIGHT HERE on April 29, 2024, selling over 2 million copies on Hanteo in its first week. On July 10, 2024, a BBC article alleged the group used AI for the title track MAESTRO, including AI visuals in the music video and possibly in its lyrics. The report claimed Woozi mentioned AI involvement during an April 30 press conference.

On July 14, 2024, Woozi posted an Instagram story in which he responded to accusations from the BBC over the purported use of AI-generated lyrics in MAESTRO. He mentioned that their music is written and composed by human creators.

Pledis Entertainment also reportedly reached out to the BBC to amend their article. They denied allegations of AI involvement in SEVENTEEN's songwriting and composition. Later, the news publication revised its claim following Woozi’s response.