I’m sure many of you have noticed, as I have, our social media feeds flooded with the images of everyone we know and even plates of food being treated to an AI glow up.
I confess I have not been immune to this latest ‘sheeple’ trend, and I found myself strangely fascinated and disturbed by the whole proposition.
During my recent down time I have been conducting what I refer to rather indignantly as “research” every time my husband has called from the kitchen exasperated because he needed help with dinner or from the living room when he and my son claimed they needed help with his All About the American Mink project.
Honestly, aside from the time I dissected one in my AP Anatomy and Physiology class, I don’t know much about the American Mink, and I don’t think teaching the class about the location of the mink’s trapezius muscles [they have three] in great detail is what his teacher is going for with this project anyway.
On Facebook I found a button for animating my profile picture.
Apparently, within seconds AI can have me Harry Pottering out for real. Just upload a picture, decide if you want to wave, have a waterfall of hearts dumping on you, or fireworks exploding over your shoulder, ect., and you can have five seconds of AI contorting your body into physical movements your still image never made.
Sure, at times this makes for a pretty cute clip of motion, but at others it creates a downright terrifying looking version of myself such as I hope to never meet in a dark, late-night hallway — the implications are 100% Orwellian.
We warn young boys and girls not to share compromising images of themselves online but how does one of any age or gender protect against someone arbitrarily choosing to download their image and animate it to appear they are doing something they would never do?
For example, if I AI’ed Oscar the Grouch grinning and waving like a lunatic all friendly like at people from his trashcan, well, I suspect he might feel some type of way about that.
In the AI prompts I tried, even the clothes I was wearing could be changed — I went from being bundled up to my neck in the real image of me wearing my too big winter coat to a tank top in the AI created and animated image. In some cases, AI added jewelry, nail polish, and a couple of adorable hairclips — even the occasional extra digit.
The thing is — in all the images it’s me.
Instead of using magic like in the Harry Potter series, AI is animating my image, my likeness. Reflected in those brief five seconds of movement are my own facial expressions and mannerisms.
Like rolling up on the scene of a traffic accident, I find myself unable to look away; I don’t really look like that… do I?
My husband swears I do. So, okay, it looks like me, but it is not me — is it?
I think we are well past the point where the animals living on the “Animal Farm” should quit listening to the pigs.