AI has leaked into several corners of our lives with so many apps now incorporating the technology. There’s a new AI app called Remini that can generate professional-looking headshots for you, but it’s controversial, according to Insider.
Remini is an app that’s mainly to remaster your old photos. It takes your old photos and remasters them to look high-definition. As you can guess, it heavily uses artificial intelligence to make its results.
Along with that, you can apply filters and different aesthetics to your photos. It looks like the app basically reconstructs the photo using AI; moreover, it just generates a copy of the original photo from the ground up. One screenshot from the Play Store shows that it actually changed what shirt a person was wearing. That’s AI magic for you!
But, AI magician Remini is a bit controversial
This story blew up on TikTok with several TikTokers posting about their results. The app can generate professional-looking headshots for people to use when applying for jobs or auditions. The app will take pretty much any photo of you and turn it into a headshot. One person took a casual picture of them in their car, and the app turned it into a very professional headshot.
Remini can take away the background from your photo, but that’s not all that it takes away. Several users on the platform found that Remini was shaving weight off of plus-sized people. Users like @ha.lei.gh, @katelynnaye, @Northstarnotes, and @xoxosarah515 note that the app would generate pictures of them significantly skinnier than in real life.
That’s a disappointing blow, as it makes the app seem biased and fatphobic. Several of their commenters agreed that the app is slimming people down. As you can imagine, this is upsetting people left and right. Headshots are supposed to represent who you are, not what an app wants you to look like.
There’s a chance that it’s not the app’s fault
At this point, we’re not sure about where Remini is getting its AI. If this is a conscious decision by the developers, then shame on them. But, we have to admit that AI image generation is intrinsically biased. AI image generators, like chatbots, need to be trained. They need to be trained on images from around the internet.
We’ve noticed that AI images in general naturally lean toward one body type. Most of the images depict women and men who are “hot”. They’re all skinny, toned, etc. We’re not sure if Remini is using an existing model that innately comes with this flaw. If so, then it’s up to the app’s developers to make changes to it to create a more inclusive app.
2023-07-19 15:05:10