Playing with People: Attempting to Add Diversity with AI

A gallery of computer-generated faces that are available at generated.photos.

Advertisements must be eye-catching to make a difference. Because of this, firms are constantly searching for new ideas, new resources, and new people. But unfortunately, software engineers have found a way to help the latter, so you fear it. 

Cheap labor is always sought after because it saves companies money and allows for allocating funds elsewhere. Without the need for actors and models, companies save money with casting, makeup, costuming, payment, and potential royalties. However, with the introduction of AI models and actors, we begin to see what some may see as a dystopian reality.

"The AI software used to create such faces is freely available and improving rapidly. AI allows small start-ups to create fakes that are so convincing easily they can fool the human eye," writes Drew Harwell in an article from the Washington Post.

The worst part about this new introduction of software is the ability to feign diversity without having to hire real diverse actors. "The site allows anyone to filter fake photos based on age (from "Infant" to "Elderly"), ethnicity (including "White," "Latino," "Asian," and "Black"), and emotion ("Joy," "Neutral," "Surprise"), as well as gender, eye color, and hair length," Drew Harwell found.

There is no prize to be won for inclusion, but this especially deserves no recognition. The push for diversity within ads is not only for representing the audience but also for bringing more diverse backgrounds into the industry and keeping them employed. But unfortunately, we are creating just as much of a boundary by removing real people. 

While we think it could be easy to spot these fake people, it proves to be more complicated than most think. YouTubers create challenges to see if you can spot the fake versus natural person side-by-side, as seen in the video below. There are also instances of influencers who are entirely fake yet still followed by millions.

While there can be many positives to integrating AI people in media, I feel this can easily fall into dangerous territory. The more we move to remove real-life humans from our ads, the more unrealistic our expectations for life become. Young people who already struggle with the photoshopped images of models will be exposed to images they don't know are pretend and may suffer because of it.