Monday, December 12, 2022

"The viral AI avatar app Lensa undressed me—without my consent"

MIT Technology Review:

I got tons of nudes. Out of 100 avatars I generated, 16 were topless, and in another 14 it had put me in extremely skimpy clothes and overtly sexualized poses.

I have Asian heritage, and that seems to be the only thing the AI model picked up on from my selfies. 

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My white female colleague got significantly fewer sexualized images, with only a couple of nudes and hints of cleavage. Another colleague with Chinese heritage got results similar to mine: reams and reams of pornified avatars.

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my Lensa avatars were more realistic when my pictures went through male content filters. I got avatars of myself wearing clothes (!) and in neutral poses. In several images, I was wearing a white coat that appeared to belong to either a chef or a doctor.