On March 27, a consumer posted on a social platform that while browsing a women's clothing store on Taobao, he discovered that a "third hand" appeared on the display model of a sports vest. When she asked the store whether there was an oversight in the AI design, the AI customer service responded that "the shooting angle caused visual misalignment." This experience made the poster dumbfounded, and quickly triggered a heated discussion among netizens about the "full-link AI" of e-commerce platforms.
The AI model in the main image of this product appears with "three hands". Network screenshot
"The three hands look weird and scary." Some netizens complained that this was "buy a vest and get a horror story." Some consumers bluntly said that online shopping today is full of AI designs, AI models and AI customer service. “Apart from the money spent, I don’t know what else is real.” Many questioning voices mentioned that in the past, real-person model shooting inevitably had the problem of incorrect goods. Nowadays, merchants directly use AI to generate product pictures, lacking basic physical inspection, and the true quality of the product cannot be guaranteed at all.
Some consumers are talking about it. Network screenshot
In response to this situation, the reporter checked the store involved on the morning of the 27th and verified that the main display image of the vest did have traces of "three hands" generated by AI. In response to inquiries, the store staff explained that the product was a new product recently launched, and what is currently displayed is the early AI design renderings, which are only for the convenience of consumers to understand the product style and appearance. The customer service admitted that the product model images and designs were generated by AI, but emphasized that "it is not randomly generated by AI."
AI customer service once replied, "The three hands are a visual misalignment." Network screenshot
Regarding the previous "visual misalignment" response from the AI customer service, the staff member clarified that the store's manual customer service got off work at 23:00, and the AI customer service's automatic response was triggered when consumers consulted at night. The store clerk apologized for the inaccuracies in the pictures displayed on the product page and promised to feedback the problem to the store operation and replace it with real photos as soon as possible. At noon on the 27th, the reporter noticed that the product had been removed from the shelves by the store.
Now there are feedbacks about product problems with "suspected AI pictures" on the platform. Reporter's screenshot
As the platform, Taobao customer service verified the product pictures provided by the reporter and confirmed that they were AI-generated pictures. The platform characterized the matter as a problem with the merchant's products and services, and stated that it would take severe penalties and focus on the stores involved in the future. Customer service clearly stated that if consumers suffer losses due to merchants' AI pictures, the platform will effectively safeguard the rights and interests of consumers in accordance with the rules; it also advises users that if they find similar situations while browsing the page, they can long press the picture and select the "suspected AI" function to report the problem.
Whether such business behavior violates regulations has also become the focus of public opinion. The store involved was shipped from Beijing, and the reporter called the Beijing Municipal Administration for Market Regulation. Staff from relevant functional departments confirmed that the e-commerce dispute fell within their jurisdiction, and stated that they would further verify the compliance of the merchant's use of AI images for commercial promotion based on the corporate subject information provided by the reporter.
Regarding the legal definition of the use of AI-generated images by e-commerce, Zhao Jingwu, an associate professor at Beihang University School of Law, once pointed out to the media that there are compliance risks when merchants use AI-generated images as the main promotional images without obvious prompts.
In fact, the "Measures for Labeling of Synthetic Content Generated by Artificial Intelligence", which will be implemented on September 1, 2025, has drawn red lines for the commercial use of AI-generated content. Zhao Jingwu said that according to this regulation, the platform has the legal responsibility to verify the identification of AI content. For relevant materials that are not labeled, it must be marked as "suspected to be generated by AI" to alert the public. If a merchant refuses to make corrections, the regulatory authorities can order it to stop illegal activities and eliminate the impact; in serious cases, it may also face administrative penalties such as fines. In addition, Zhao Jingwu reminded that if the unmarked AI product promotion image constitutes an advertisement, it violates the relevant provisions of the Advertising Law. The market supervision department can order the merchant to stop illegal activities and impose a fine of 200,000 yuan to 1 million yuan; in serious cases, the business license can even be revoked.
