AI beauty contests are here (Picture: Instagram/hailey.lopezxo/amyeverhart96)
It’s 2024 and I feel like defending beauty pageants.
Yes, really.
But there’s a valid reason – reading the ridiculous news that social media platform Fanvue, a rival to OnlyFans, is preparing to judge the first Miss AI contest.
The competition will pit digital creators from across the world against each other in a bid to win the top prize of $5,000, all while promoting toxic beauty ideals in the process.
I’m lucky. I’m old enough that I didn’t grow up constantly bombarded with images of what women should look like. Just in weekly and monthly magazines, and some adverts, rather than all day every day, staring at me through my phone.
But for young women growing up today, social media means it is relentless, with proven and damaging mental health and body image effects. An AI beauty contest will surely only turbocharge that.
And aside from the damaging mental wellbeing effects of drawing perfect women and making them compete with one another, it offers another example for detractors of AI to cite.
Artificial intelligence has so much potential – it can literally save lives – yet here we are, using it to create unrealistic women with huge boobs.
AI model Hailey Lopez (Picture: Instagram/hailey.lopezxo)
It’s true that the winners have yet to be decided, and we might be pleasantly surprised should the organisers decide to promote body positivity and diversity, but the evidence so far isn’t encouraging.
If you’ve seen an AI-generated woman – and you almost certainly will have, even if you didn’t realise – chances are they looked very similar to all the other AI-generated women.
A beautiful, symmetrical face, glowing skin, perfect brows and lips. Thin. Mostly white. Often with large breasts, scantily clad and in ‘sexy’ poses.
They are the 100% pure embodiment of the Western male gaze, and a completely unrealistic ideal for young girls and women to match.
And (here’s my brief defence of traditional pageants) unlike in real-life, where contestants get the opportunity to showcase often incredible talents – past winners have been highly-accomplished ballet dancers, musicians and scientists – these hopefuls really have little to offer but their looks.
In addition, two of the ‘judges’ will also be AI-generated women and, you guessed it, they’re strikingly beautiful, thin and have large breasts.
One, Aitana Lopez, is Spain’s ‘first AI model’ and reportedly earns her creator Rubén Cruz up to $10,000 a month by modelling clothes for her army of Instagram followers.
The other, Emily Pellegrini, is so realistic – and, obviously, incredibly attractive – that footballers, billionaires and tennis players have reportedly slid into her DMs.
Her creator said: ‘The goal was to make her likeable and attractive. I wanted to keep her as real as possible.’
Irony is truly dead.
Thankfully, according to reports, Aitana and Emily won’t actually be doing the judging, but rather their creators.
That could save the organisers potential embarrassment, given AI judges have been accused of racism in the past.
When asked to judge 6,000 real contestants from 100 countries for a beauty contest in 2016, of 44 winners, the AI judges selected only one winner with dark skin.
AI has come a long way since those days, but it continues to display issues of bias, especially when it comes to race.
AI-influencer Emily Pellegrini (Picture: Instagram/emilypellegrini)
This isn’t only a problem when it comes to beauty contests – it has already been seen time and again in facial recognition software, and must be tackled head-on before AI is deployed more widely in public life, such as in the justice system.
But back to beauty, and the growing army of clones taking over the internet – especially on social media.
While many companies are doing little to stop it, others are actively promoting it. One well-known platform is reportedly considering launching its own army of AI influencers to hoover up some of the lucrative advertising dollars currently going to real-life humans.
But my main issue is the impact that social media, and the proliferation of AI characters that lurk there, is having on young women.
It was to little surprise that a recent study found that taking a break from social media for as little as one week has a positive effect on teenage girl’s self-esteem and body image.
We’re never going to stop teenagers using social media, but surely seeing a never ending stream of 100% fake women and ‘thinspiration’ will do the opposite.
And while the children and young women faced with these AI ideals will grow up with a warped sense of beauty, the AI models themselves will, of course, never grow old.
In an industry where youth is often cherished above all else, brands need never again worry about the face of their product ageing.
Meanwhile, children on social media are becoming increasingly obsessed with expensive anti-ageing products they don’t need in an attempt to slow down something that is an inescapable fact of life – and a privilege.
Of course, this isn’t all the fault of a single AI beauty contest, there are much wider issues at play.
It is also hard to say whose responsibility it is to stop the spread of fake women online.
While social media platforms should absolutely ensure AI content is labelled clearly, most users already know that many ‘real’ photos they see have been tweaked, airbrushed or Photoshopped in some way.
That knowledge doesn’t stop the gradual erosion of young girls’ confidence, and it’s hard to imagine AI-generated content won’t have the same effect.
Likewise, there is no reason to stop individuals creating AI-generated women, they’re perfectly entitled to.
But, perhaps, we could not offer thousands of dollars in return.
Because it is not only a significant milestone on the internet’s race to the bottom – it is a reminder that still, in 2024, judging women on their looks is not only routine, it is rewarded.
So in this ‘beauty’ competition, there may be a handful of winners, but I’m certain there will be many more losers.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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