It’s likely you’ve seen the latest trend doing the rounds on social media, as people share AI pH๏τos of themselves. The images are creating using an app called Lensa AI, where users simply upload a selfie and within seconds, have a realistic animated avatar of themselves. However, there is mounting criticism of the AI pH๏τos being created, as people have begun to call them out for “perpetuating misogyny” and “Sєxualising” women.
One famous faced-critic is Megan Fox, who took to instagram to share her own “magic avatar” (as they have become known), writing: “Were everyone’s avatars equally as Sєxual? Like, why are most of mine naked?? 🥺”
The actor shared a string of images that Lensa created for her and it’s impossible not to notice that each one seems to heavily feature her cleavage or show some degree of nudity – in fact, she seems to be fully ɴuᴅᴇ in two of the images.
Many of her followers were quick to explain that the app generates the images on what a user has previously posted on Instagram and that her results are probably somewhat based on the types of images she has chosen to share in the past.
One wrote: “I think it depends on how you choose your selfie pH๏τos, the results are from your own sent pictures to the application.”
Another said: “Because that’s how you show yourself.”
However, what’s crucial here, is that there is a big difference in how we choose to show ourselves and how someone else (including an AI platform) chooses to depict us. On top of this, many other users of the app have reported that they felt the avatars created for then were overly Sєxualised, many saying that their breasts had been enhanced while others have commented on the app creating a figure for them even after they only submitted pH๏τos of their face.
Not to mention that shaming someone – celebrity or not – into believing that they should have no say in how they are Sєxualised by the world because of what they have chosen to share in the past, is misogynistic.
As one follower pointed out: “The misogyny in comments. She has talked about the industry Sєxualising her over the years, the world owes her an apology and instead you keep sending her hate.”
But this goes beyond Megan, because the app doesn’t seem to discriminate against which women it Sєxualises. As other users have commented. “Lensa gave me a boob job! Thanks AI!!!” tweeted another user who also received a naked headsH๏τ cropped right above the breasts. “Anyone else get loads [of] boobs in their Lensa pictures or just me?” asked another.
While other women feel that their faces have been “smoothed out” or made to look younger.
And the scariest side of all this? Not only can anyone upload your pH๏τo to the app – with or without your permission – and, in effect, create soft porn, the app also makes no allowances for age (Lensa AI currently listed as appropriate for ages four and up on the Apple App Store). In an essay for Wired, writer Olivia Snow wrote that she submitted “a mix of childhood pH๏τos and [current] selfies” to the app and received back “fully ɴuᴅᴇ pH๏τos of an adolescent and sometimes childlike face but a distinctly adult body”.
For many women, including Megan Fox, it’s clear that the app is violating our rights, perpetuating misogyny and is based on, at best, shaky ethics. We’d encourage everyone, not just women, to stop using the app.