Fanvue, an influencer platform, recently announced the results of its first “Miss AI” contest, which sought to judge AI-born social media influencers from a simple publicity stunt. Doubled as well. The “winner” is a legendary Instagram influencer from Morocco named Kenza Lely with more than 200,000 followers, but the competition is already drawing criticism from women in the AI space.
Hugging Face AI researcher Dr. Sascha Lucioni told Ars Technica that “objectification of women with AI is another step forward.” “As a woman working in this field, I'm not surprised but disappointed.”
AI-powered Instagram influencers are reportedly on the rise as freely available image synthesis tools like Stable Diffusion make it easy to create unlimited amounts of provocative images of women on demand. And techniques like Dreambooth allow AI models to be placed in different settings on a given subject (including AI-generated ones).
Fanvue
The technology has drawn criticism since its introduction in 2022, so it's not surprising that critics believe the “Miss AI” pageant sets an unfortunate precedent and objectifies women. . “With such a glaring lack of gender diversity, it's not surprising that it has come to use AI to create images of what ideal women look like,” Lucioni said.
But the contest, part of the so-called “World AI Creator Awards” (WAICAS), seems designed in such a way that the negative coverage also serves as a publicity stunt for a company that's doing anything online. Monetizes attention, AI or not. In some ways, the bigger story is that AI-generated fakery has permeated the culture so much that an outlet like CNN will now refer to AI-generated photos of apparently fake people as if they were human.
In a CNN article titled, “The First Miss AI Is Crowned — And She's About to Influence a Moroccan Lifestyle,” writes fashion journalist Jackie Palumbo, “On the Moroccan Lifestyle Meet Kanza Lely, the influencer who hopes to bring 'diversity and inclusion' to the AI creator landscape. With nearly 200,000 Instagram followers, and another 45,000 on TikTok, Lely is powered entirely by AI. From her photos to her captions to her hilarious acceptance speech.”
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A screenshot of the Instagram account of the AI-powered inspiration “Kenza Lily”, who won first place in the Miss AI competition. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
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A screenshot of the Instagram account of AI-powered inspiration “Lalina”, who won second place in the Miss AI competition. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
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A screenshot of the Instagram account of AI-powered inspiration “Olivia C”, who won third place in the Miss AI competition. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
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An example Instagram photo screenshot for the AI-generated inspiration “Kenza Lily,” which won first place in the Miss AI competition. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
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An example Instagram photo screenshot for the AI-generated inspiration “Lalina,” who won second place in the Miss AI competition. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
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An example Instagram photo screenshot for AI-generated influencer “Olivia C,” who won third place in the Miss AI competition. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
Of course, it's impossible to meet Leila – she's not real. Lily Phoenix is the creation of AI agency founder Miriam Bissa, who will reportedly receive a $5,000 cash prize for her creation. CNN then cites a video acceptance speech of Lely that looks like a video of a real person with an AI-generated face change: “As we move forward, I want to promote diversity and inclusion within the field. Committed to giving, making sure everyone has a seat at the technological development table.” The speech makes little sense, presumably either spoken by a piece of software or ghostwritten by its human creator.