Alerts About AI And Dangerous Beauty Myths Puppy Bold Glamour Filter on TikTok

The newest trend on TikTok is a real-time filter called Bold Glamour, which saunters right past discussions about harmful beauty standards on social media and focuses only on providing users a fresh look.

Bold Glamour, which was quietly made available to the app’s more than a billion users, successfully combines a user’s actual visage with an AI-generated ideal of a supermodel, evoking both amusement and fear.

Millions of posts on TikTok show viewers’ awe at Bold Glamour’s superhuman abilities while praising their full lips, fashionista-worthy chin, and fluffy eyebrows.

The “beauty myth” has a new wave of attack, according to Kim Johnson, an associate professor of nursing at Middle Georgia State University in the United States.

Bold Glamour-like effects “lead to undesirable behaviors including obsessive dieting, comparing, and low self-esteem,” according to Johnson.

TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat have all long included filters and effects, but the newest ones, such Bold Glamour, have been amplified.

“That is obvious. That happens instantly. That is strong,” Gwendolyn Seidman, an Albright College psychology professor, remarked in Psychology Today.

She continued, “Won’t like what they see when they pull the filter off, and that’s the problem,” for those seeking social acceptance, such as pressured teens.

Beyond Bold Glamour’s unsettling appearance, critics are baffled by the technology itself and wonder if the app represents an unnoticed development in artificial intelligence.

Older filters overlayed an effect over an on-screen face, similar to Snapchat’s funny lenses, and were simple to spot with a quick motion or by waving a hand in front of the picture.

Luke Hurd, a mixed reality artist, said on TikTok, “What’s so wonderful about this is that you can… take your hand and place it in front of your face and it (continues to appear) pretty darn genuine.

Real-time video filters have been available on powerful computers for some time, but they are now accessible to everyone on smartphones.

According to Andrew Selepak, a social media expert at the University of Florida, this is AI for the masses to change their appearance, and that is what is attracting so much interest.

When contacted by AFP, TikTok declined to comment on the app’s technology, leaving Bold Glamour’s functioning as a mystery.

Nonetheless, the website “celebrates and encourages being authentic to oneself,” according to the firm, and “effects assist promote self-expression and creativity.”

In a statement, TikTok stated, “We continue to work with knowledgeable partners and our community, to help keep TikTok a healthy, supportive platform for everyone.

Experts claim that Bold Glamour uses generative AI, similar as ChatGPT or Dall-E, apps that can generate poems, artwork, and designs virtually instantly on demand.

These kinds of filters have been around for a while, but TikTok’s most recent version is “very fine-tuned and nicely done,” according to Petr Somol, the AI research director of Gen, a tech security company.

Importantly, if Bold Glamour were the most recent incarnation of generative AI, it would suggest that the filter relies on vast data repositories to produce ever-more-perfect results.

Its reliance on big data comes as the Chinese-owned company is being closely watched by the US government and other western countries, which are concerned about the company’s ties to Beijing’s communist authorities. Selepak questioned whether TikTok was actually worried about the effects of this brand-new, dazzling object.

Road to “deep fake” – Catfishing, frauds, and deep fakes: some people question if cutting-edge filters hint to a world when anybody with a smartphone has the potential to abuse technology.

Although the most recent filters “are not technically a deep fake technology as such, there is a reasonably clear road extending in that direction,” added Somol.

Siwei Lyu, a computer science professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said it was doubtful that significant platforms like TikTok or Instagram, which is owned by Meta, would purposefully distribute harmful tools.

Yet, he continued, “what makes them more hazardous is those who understand the technology might tweak it to assist users dodge being identified online,” offering new opportunities for abuse.