Is AI Face Coming for All of Us?
The ask from my editor was simple: Send over a headshot for my author bio. I had a photo that I liked—an unforced smize, blown out hair, good lighting—but the problem was my outfit was unprofessional. In what seemed like a saner alternative to asking my boyfriend to snap 50 pictures of me against a plain wall, I turned to AI. I uploaded said photo and asked both ChatGPT and Gemini to swap my halter dress for a white button-down. As an unexpected add-on, I also got two new faces.
“It started with filters on apps like Snapchat, moved to apps like Facetune, and now there are apps that show you an ‘idealized’ version of your face. But [AI] has taken it further,” adds Melissa A. Doft, M.D., a plastic surgeon on New York’s Upper East Side.
“I think both can be depressing,” Dr. Doft tells me after looking into the brands’ offerings. “As a culture, we’re already very self-deprecating about beauty, so why introduce another app that reinforces our existing insecurities, or worse, points out a new one?”