It's likely you've seen the latest trend doing the rounds on social media, as people share AI photos 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 photos being created, as people have begun to call them out for “perpetuating misogyny” and “sexualising” 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 sexual? Like, why are most of mine naked?? 🥺”
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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 nude 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 photos, the results are from your own sent pictures to the application."
Another said: “Because that’s how you show yourself.”
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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 sexualised, 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 photos of their face.
Not to mention that shaming someone - celebrity or not - into believing that they should have no say in how they are sexualised 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 sexualising 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 sexualises. As other users have commented. “Lensa gave me a boob job! Thanks AI!!!” tweeted another user who also received a naked headshot cropped right above the breasts. “Anyone else get loads [of] boobs in their Lensa pictures or just me?” asked another.
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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 photo 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 photos and [current] selfies” to the app and received back “fully nude photos 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.
GLAMOUR has contacted Lensa and is awaiting comment.
