Hyperreality
In which we are so real that it's fake
In the beginning, visual generative AI, such as DALL-E, was met with both awe and mockery. Awe because, sure, pretty impressive; mockery, because generated people would have seven fingers, shadows and lighting were all wrong, and so on. (I’m sure any visual artists among my readers have way better examples.)
The tricky thing about this generative, copyright-infringing dalliance is that it gets better over time.
Today, the mockery has to search harder to find its target. Some AI models have even become so good that they produce ‘hyperreal’ faces.
Let me explain.
Face space theory was articulated in its current incarnation by psychologist Tim Valentine. In short, face space theory suggests that the way we recognize (and yes, judge) faces is by how much they deviate from the average in several dimensions. For example, the more, say, your nose size deviates from the average for your ethnicity, gender, and age, the more ‘distinct’ your face will be in people’s estimation.
Here’s the thing about generative AI: it really, really likes averages and statistically likely things. That holds for generated faces too.
A recent study found that AI-generated faces are more likely to be judged human than… human faces. Yes, you read that right. Especially - and this is another great example of AI bias - in the case of white faces.
A test.
Answers at the end of the post. Let me know if you got them and challenge friends and family.
The researchers go on to test which characteristics of the AI faces make them so convincing and… face space theory for the win.
AI faces were significantly more average (less distinctive), familiar, and attractive, and less memorable than human faces.
Translation: unless you specify it in the prompt, AI faces won’t have disproportionate noses.
This is not all fun and games. There are already many AI-generated social media influencers, like Aitana, which earns the agency behind it $11,000/month. Aitana fools many of ‘her’ followers. She’s even had male celebrities slide into her DMs to ask her out, which is a whole other problem that stinks of male entitlement, but that’s for another day. Along the same lines, (almost?) all of these AI influencers are conventionally attractive young women.
The agency behind Aitana was tired of dealing with influencers and their egos, so they simply made one themselves.
Attention economy dystopia in three, two…
Let’s not deal with people who have - gasp - personalities, but make fake people that are, quite literally, too real to be real. Generate perfect proportions (usually according to the male gaze) and everything else to tick all those subconscious biological boxes of ‘attractiveness’, and many a horny young man will follow you with a creepy insistence and gladly throw money at you to stroke their egos.
We know that Instagram filters and Photoshop negatively affect how young women (and men!) see themselves and their bodies. For example, this 2020 study of people in their early 20s concludes (emphasis mine):
Men and women who made the most use of Instagram were equally vulnerable to dysmorphic concerns when they tended to compare their appearance with other users, had problems regulating their emotions, and showed interpretative biases related to the belief that others could make comments about them or laugh at them because of their imperfections.
*In sarcastic tone* Why not add some AI-generated hyperreality to it? Surely that will help?
Reality is not a polished palace full of perfect people. How boring would that be? And yet, we all have - and, if we’re honest, most of us dislike - our own imperfections. Mine haunt me, so I understand the need for escapism, the urge to avoid mirrors and reflective surfaces, and the discomfort when you watch a photo or video of yourself.
Escaping into the flawless virtual arms of an AI-generated influencer, though, is not the way to deal with it, I’d say.
Related thoughts:
Poll 1: number four is the human.
Poll 2: number four is the AI-generated face.
(The example photos are from Miller et al. 2023 in Psychological Science.)
This reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode ("Eye of the Beholder" in 1960 - yes, I am that old!). Most of the episode shows only shadows, without revealing faces. The story line is a young woman who is hideously ugly, and is about to get her last hope surgery to achieve a normal appearance. At the end the bandages are removed and you see a perfectly lovely woman. Then the camera pulls back to reveal that virtually everyone else has grotesque features, with pig-like noses. She is distraught because the surgery didn't work.
I reckon Jon Baudrillard would say your a projecting the problem of hypreality onto men. But then you could just ring him in the ai and convince him hyp. Is fine like I do,, so who cares. the ai is so permissive.
Ps. When I attack women on the internet I make sure it's with game theory and to win, cause that's what they are doing to me. Tit for tat; the optimal solution to the prisoner dilemma (communism). Bet this ends well.
Thoughts?