Patients lead to the operating room photos of their “improved” with AI. Surgeons are in charge of making them come true

A year ago, an unpublished contest copied The covers of different media: Miss Ia. As one can intuit, the models were created with artificial intelligence and presented impossible bodies: without wrinkles, without pores, without history … the event, promoted by the platform Fanvue World AI Creator AwardsNo only generated a flood of comments, but opened a deep debate: are we willing to accept something of beauty as an ideal that does not even exist? And something further, does the real body begin to be seen as a defective version of the digital render?

Unreal expectations. According to The Columbus Dispatchplastic surgeons such as Dr. Jaclyn Tomsic and Dr. Craig Lehrman are observing a worrying phenomenon in their consultations: patients who come with images generated by AI, asking for impossible interventions. “With AI you can make your body as you want,” explained Tomsic, maxillofacial surgeon in Cleveland.

For his part, Lehrman, a plastic surgeon at the Wexner Medical Center of the Ohio State University, has reported cases of older patients who carry photos of edited celebrities. “They tell me: ‘Why don’t I look like this?’ Both doctors have recognized that they have had to dedicate more and more time to explain why they cannot replicate what IA promises: biology, bone structure or age cannot be erased with scalpel.

Beyond. The expectations created by filters, apps and image generators They are generating Frustration and danger: some people insist on operating again and again, chasing a non -existent ideal. In addition, they have warned of a psychological risk: people who fail to resemble these artificial images can become obsessed, resort to multiple surgeries and face constant frustration. Lehrman has summarized it as follows: “That will take many unhappy people and pursue this imaginary dream.”

In fact, this phenomenon goes beyond the surgical: it affects the way we interact with our own image. It is increasingly common for people to ask AI that value their physical appearance Or tell them what to improve on your face. The point is not what the AI ​​can respond, but the fact that your judgment has so much weight on how we can perceive.

Fiction made leather. Before, manipulating an image required technical knowledge or tricks of light and makeup. Today, with a free app, anyone can be seen as a supermodel in seconds. The AI ​​not only retouches, but has led it to another level: it can generate faces from scratch. According to Lehrmanthis makes it “increasingly difficult to distinguish the real from the invented.”

Given this threat, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons has created a gallery with real photos before and after procedures to combat misinformation. But the battle is unequal: millions of false, stylized and standardized images are generated every day.

The Aitana case. This logic is reflected in phenomena such as Aitana LópezSpanish influencer with more than 350 thousand followers on Instagram that does not really exist. In other words, it is a 100% model generated with AI. Its creators They have admitted They sought to create an influencer that “never gets tired, never ages, always smile.” With his success, he has not only obtained real advertising contracts; It has also imposed a new quite problematic aesthetic standard because there are no human limitations.

Advances and dilemmas. The “artificial intelligence in plastic surgery: where do we stand?” has reviewed 96 Studies on the use of AI in plastic surgery. Although it has proven useful in diagnoses of dermatological diseases, surgical planning and even prediction of postoperative complications. However, the conclusions have also warned about ethical risks, lack of regulation and algorithmic biases. One of the key problems is that AI models are trained with limited populations data, which can generate racist, class or capacitist results.

The bias behind the AI. The algorithms are trained with millions of images that reinforce Eurocentric, thin, cis and young people. As has warned Kenig et al. Quoted in the study, AI can exacerbate inequalities by replicating stereotypes invisible other bodies. This concern has also been pointed out by critical voices within the technological field. For example, author Ruha Benjamin holds that “Algorithmic discrimination does not need hate to function; You only need data from the past ”, in his book Race AFter Technology. For his part, Safiya Noble, in Algorithms of Oppression, has detailed How commercial and racist logic are embedded in search engines and recommendation systems. Technology, far from democratizing beauty, seems to strengthen it even more.

The definition of beauty is not so much. As Bell Hooks said: “Representation matters.” However, if now the AI, trained with exclusion patterns, decides what faces we see, what bodies are shown, and which do not, then we are not only attending an aesthetic change, but to a deep reconfiguration of what we consider desirable, possible and human. The issue is not asking: “What is beautiful?”, But what are we willing to obey?

Image | Freepik, Xataka

Xataka | The cosmetics industry has found a new market: the problem is that they are girls under 10 years