“Miss AI: A supposed advancement that proves to be a major setback” – Arwa Mahdawi

M
I eat Madame Potato. Although she doesn’t actually exist, she will hopefully become the world’s first “Miss AI”. I recently created an image of her on her website that generates AI faces and entered it into a beauty pageant. Now I’m sitting in hopes of winning $20,000 in prize money.

What kind of fresh hell is this? Well, unfortunately, AI beauty pageants are now trendy. A company called Fanvue, a subscription-based content creator platform similar to OnlyFans, recently partnered with the World AI Creator Awards (WAICA) to create the world’s first Miss AI” contest. A team of judges consisting of two humans and two virtual models will classify the AI-generated photos of women and select one woman to be crowned “Miss AI.” Winners will receive cash prizes and the chance to monetize their work on Fanvue.

How will the winner be chosen? Apparently so. However, the judges will also consider the size of a character’s fan base and their “personality.” This application contains questions such as: “If your AI models could talk, what would be their one dream to make the world a better place?” The technical skill behind the character’s creation will also be considered by the judges.

A WAICA press release said the contest “represents a monumental leap forward, nearly 200 years after the world’s first actual beauty pageant was held in the 1880s.”

But it feels more like a monumental setback than a “step forward.” Rather than destroying traditional beauty standards, AI models exaggerate them. They take all the toxic gendered beauty norms and package them up in a completely unrealistic package.

For example, let’s take a look at two AI models that are judging a contest. Aitana Lopez and Emily Pellegrini. Pellegrini was designed by an anonymous creator who told Chat GPT that he asked the average man what his dream was in a woman and designed the model along those lines. That means long hair, big breasts, perfect skin, and a sculpted body. Pelligrini is still a completely digital work, but she reportedly earns thousands of dollars from fan views and famous soccer players use her Instagram because they think she’s a real person. It seems like he’s going to slide into Gram’s DMs.

Another judge, López, who is touted as “Spain’s first AI model” and can apparently “earn up to €10,000 a month” with modeling work for brands, is also on the same page. The creators of Lopez AI modeling office A group called “The Clueless” rejected criticism of her sexual appearance, claiming they were merely reacting to market forces. “If we don’t follow this aesthetic, brands won’t be interested.” one of the creators he told reporters. “To change this system, we need to change our brand vision. The entire world is sexualized.”

So is this the future? Will human models be completely replaced by AI? The folks at The Clueless certainly seem to hope so. “[Brands] We want to have an image that represents the values of the brand, not a real person, so that if we have to lay someone off or we can no longer rely on them, there will be continuity issues,” says founder Ruben Cruz. he told Euronews. And it all makes sense. Why wouldn’t brands want to use a model that never ages and has full control?