‘Were everyone’s avatars equally as sexual?’ AI art has celebs like Dennis Chew and Tosh Zhang buzzing, but it’s stirring up controversy

Ever wondered what Dennis Chew would look like as an astronaut instead of an actor? Wonder no more.

In multiple recent Instagram posts, Dennis Chew, Tosh Zhang, Aden Tan, Maxi Lim and Rachel Wan have shared images of themselves — except they’re made by artificial intelligence (AI).

“I’ve been AI’d,” Tosh, 33, wrote on his post. “Which is your favourite?”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CmJw-v3pPtT/

Aden, 30, also shared AI-generated images of himself on his Instagram and wrote: “I caved, and now there’s many different versions of me.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CmEH1R6Pk1c/

Many users, including Ah Boys To Men star Noah Yap, commented that the images of him look uncannily like South Korean model Chang Ha.

35-year-old Maxi also took part in the trend and uploaded a slideshow of images generated by AI. Referring to himself, he said: “The Eat Bro, in all its inter-dimensional glory.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CmLiGZ8L5EK/

Captioning her post with the words “In another world”, Mediacorp actress Rachel, 26, also posted some close-up shots of what the AI generated for her face.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CmNYEKHPwh1/?hl=en

AI art fun isn’t just for the younger generation, however, as Dennis Chew also shared AI-generated art of himself.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CmDxEBorNw6/?hl=en

AI’s not-so-secret fetishes?

And while it does seem a lot of fun converting your likeness into an unblemished portrait of yourself, there are problems that underlie AI-generated art.

Before local artistes had their fun with AI art, Hollywood stars also tried it out — with chilling realisations.

“Were everyone’s avatars equally as sexual? Like, why are most of mine naked?” Transformers star Megan Fox questioned in an Instagram post showing AI-generated art of herself.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl72fI1rLVI/?hl=en

Megan, 36, is one of the many who have noticed that AI art could be “perpetuating” the sexualisation of women.

Brandee Barker, activist and former Head of Global Communications and Public Policy at Facebook shared a few AI-generated images of herself on Twitter that reveal a lot of skin.

But these images were “based on photos of just her face”, she said.

“Is it just me or are these AI selfie generator apps perpetuating misogyny?” Barker added in her Twitter post.

Is it just me or are these AI selfie generator apps perpetuating misogyny? Here’s a few I got just based on my photos of my face. pic.twitter.com/rUtRVRtRvG

— Brandee Barker (@brandee) December 3, 2022

An article by the MIT Technology Review on Monday also opined that AI art’s fetish for Asian women is so strong that the writer got “female nudes and sexualised poses” even when she had the application generate avatars of her as a male.

However, when the same AI art application was used by men, it generated “realistic yet flattering avatars” of them, such as “astronauts, fierce warriors and cool cover photos for electronic music albums”, the article stated.

Additionally, there has also been criticism of AI art generators making skin tones look whiter than they really are, according to Buzzfeed.

‘An insult to life itself’

And the moral ambiguity of AI art doesn’t stop there.

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In August this year, a piece by Kotaku highlighted issues with AI art even from a creative perspective — the AI ‘learns’ to ‘draw’ by basing their work on that of established artists in their fields.

And even though AI-generated pieces may not look quite as similar to the original, human-made artworks, there are instances where unique artwork features like watermarks leak through and end up in the AI’s end result, Kotaku wrote.

Even the artworks of the late cartoonist Kim Jung-gi have also been used to generate content.

While the AI’s trainer suggests that this was done in “homage” to Kim, many Twitter users were horrified by what they felt this represented.

“This person isn’t an artist,” one user said of the AI’s trainer. “They stole from a recently deceased artist to promote themselves for ripping someone else’s work and having an open AI try to copy it.

“There is no art there. Only disgrace.”

This is why we talk so much shit about AI “art”. Kim Jung Gi left us less than a a week and AI bros are already “replicating” his style and demanding credit. Vultures and spineless, untalented losers. This sets a horrible precedent. pic.twitter.com/th40FgbeIU

— 🎃 Dave Scheidt 🎃 (@DaveScheidt) October 7, 2022

Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro also recently said in an interview with Decider that he “consumes” and “loves art made by humans”, and that AI art is “an insult to life itself”.

Guillermo, 58, was quoting Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki, who was commenting on an AI-made animation of a zombie in 2016 — which he didn’t find inspiring at all.

“Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is whatsoever. I am utterly disgusted… I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself,” 81-year-old Miyazaki said when he encountered the animated zombie for the first time.

While the creators balked at his scathing review, they later explained that their end-goal was to “build a machine that can draw pictures like humans do”.

“I feel like we are nearing the end of times, we humans are losing faith in ourselves…” Miyazaki later said, trailing off.

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khooyihang@asiaone.com

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