Meet Marcus Bennett, the AI basketball player

A content creator has generated a high school basketball player using artificial intelligence (AI). Marcus Bennett is gaining insane traction on social media, but what is it all for?

The content creator “All Hail BBall” has created his very own high school basketball player using AI and is gaining an immense amount of followers on social media.

The fake high school basketball player, Marcus Bennett, has gained over 163,000 followers in just a few days after the content creator responsible for the account, Cullen Honohan, started an extended series on TikTok.

Honohan’s goal is to get Bennett ranked by the start of the season by presenting him as a real person who has met prominent coaches, played physically on the court, and has a complete and comprehensive backstory.

@allhailbball EP 1: Can We CREATE A FAKE HOOPER And Get Him RANKED??😱👀 Follow For Part 2!! 🫡 #basketballplayer #ai #marcusbennett #highschoolbasketball #ranked #underrated #hooper #allhailbball ♬ original sound - All Hail Cullen 🫡

In a TikTok video, Honohan said that he used artificial intelligence to come up with realistic names for basketball players.

Then he asked ChatGPT to generate Bennett’s backstory to really flesh out his character and give people something to talk about.

Honohan fed AI images of the 50 top basketball players in the US in order to create Bennett’s face and overall look.

The model then combined all of the top players' faces to create the fake rising star, Marcus Bennett.

After creating an Instagram account, Honohan found grainy footage of a five-star player and used a deepfake website to superimpose Bennett’s fake face onto the player.

The fake high school basketball player’s account then exploded with followers, but there was a problem. ChatGPT generated a fake person with a fake backstory and a fake school.

So, Honohan spent hours making this AI basketball player real by buying a domain for his fictional school, Carson Prep, and generating a website to make the fake school in Virginia legitimate.

The website contains AI-generated images of the school, its fictional gym, and even fake merchandise.

The school's slogan states: “At Carson Prep, we don’t just build basketball players – we develop leaders on and off the court.”

The website even has a contact form where prospective students and parents can enquire about attending this “elite athletic” school.

But why would Honohan want to create an AI basketball player? To trick scouts into thinking that Bennett is a real person, of course.

While this might sound simple, recruits don’t usually get fooled by this kind of ploy.

That’s why Honohan created a roster page full of fake players and registered Carson Prep to MaxPreps, a source for scouts when looking for high school athletes.

While Honohan says that “there’s a chance” that this alone will fool recruits into believing that Carson Prep and subsequently Marcus Bennett are real, it seems unlikely.

Since posting the series on TikTok, Honohan claims that his AI player has become the most famous high school basketball player in the world.

However, Tyran Stokes, the small forward playing for Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California, seemingly outranks Honohan’s fake player in Instagram followers with 218,000.

And there are likely other real high school basketball players with more Instagram followers and notoriety than Honohan’s AI avatar.

Yet Bennett allegedly got his first college offer from various prominent colleges in America.

@allhailbball Ep 4: Where Should Marcus Head Next??😱👀 Follow For Part 5!!🫡 #basketballplayer #ai #college #commitment #marcusbennett #highschoolbasketball #ranked #underrated #update #allhailbball ♬ original sound - All Hail Cullen 🫡

However, at the time of writing, Bennett still isn’t ranked, and whether Honohan can actually fool recruiters into believing that his AI player is real is yet to be determined.

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