Anyone who thinks beauty pageants belong to the 1950s may be surprised to learn that they’re part of “the future.” And thanks to AI image generation, they are becoming more toxic and bizarre than ever.
The Fanvue World AI Creator Awards (WAICA) has launched Miss AI, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: an outdated, musty beauty pageant, but for AI robots. The fake models will compete for a chance to win a $5,000 top prize and the chance to be the “world first.”
Of course, Miss AI isn’t just about who has the best fake body. No way. In addition to “beauty” and “balance,” contestants will be asked the obligatory question of how they will contribute to world peace. They will also be judged on their “social media influence”, just to add another level of toxicity to the case. Perhaps we could also give them points for their catfishing potential?
One of the competition’s judges will be the non-existent Emily Pellegrini, who became “famous” last year after footballers and other celebrities reportedly wrote to her believing she was real. Based on the comments on her Instagram account, it seems like some people still think she exists. Followers were left terribly angry with her after she deleted her old ‘pics’ and replaced them with a ‘coming soon’ message. I guess she is updating her look towards Midjourney 6 coming up.
So yes, the competition itself will be judged by a false model. Two in fact: There’s also Atiana Lopez, a fake girl from Barcelona who reportedly earns $10,000 a month for her male designer by modeling for brands. It’s unclear how they will express their opinions, but I assume their vote will be decided by ChatGPT or the AI used to write their Instagram captions. To add some sanity to the proceedings, the judging panel will be completed by Lord Alan Sugar’s PR adviser, Andrew Bloch, and Miss Great Britain’s head judge, Sally Ann Fawcett, who are both, apparently , real people.
Contest sponsor Fanvue is a platform for social media “creators.” He calls fake models like Pellegrini and Lopez “AI creators,” although it might be more accurate to call them “AI created.” The company estimates that the fake AI industry will be worth $1 billion in 2024 and that its dystopian, hellish competition will become the industry’s “Oscars” (you’d think they could spend on a non-generic, non-generic website). a larger prize pool). .
Co-founder Will Monange said: “The creator economy is an extremely exciting place to be right now, and with the help of our platform, there has been exponential growth in the number of AI creators entering the industry. space, growing their fan base and monetizing their content. AI is just one award in a program, and we share the vision that WAICA should become the Oscars of the AI creator economy. »
One of the criticisms of real beauty pageants like Miss Universe is that they dehumanize women. So what can we say about a beauty contest where the candidates are not human to begin with? Do candidates even have a say in whether or not they participate? Maybe we need a charter to protect the rights of AI robots.
Although the Miss AI competition is decidedly low-budget, there is understandable concern that the broader explosion of AI-generated models will only exacerbate unrealistic beauty standards, particularly among young girls (there is no has no Mr AI competition yet).
This has already caused a lot of concern due to the culture of social media influencers and the use of Photoshop, which filters out more practical tricks to get the perfect selfie. We now have models that are completely unreal and do not necessarily respect human anatomy at all.
Journalist Danae Mercer Ricci recently wrote on Instagram: “My generation has had to navigate models in magazines. Our kids are going to have to compete with computer-created ‘perfection’ on their social platforms. I don’t know how to solve this problem . But I know we need to be informed.”
Dove is one of the brands that was quick to respond to this situation, expanding its Real Beauty campaign to reject AI beauty standards. But I think it will take much more than the actions of a single brand to prevent social media from becoming a sinkhole of AI-generated waste.
In more recent AI controversy, we saw Netflix accused of using AI footage in a documentary and A24 accused of using AI for its Civil War posters.
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