The Kyocera VP-210, the first colour video and camera phone to be sold commercially, debuted in Japan in 1999. Wireless carriers established a policy mandating that the phones they supplied would have a loud camera shutter noise that customers couldn’t turn off a year after the phones’ introduction due to concerns about the sudden surge in “up-skirt” voyeurism the phones facilitated. Even now, there remains disagreement over whether or not the measure was effective. Nevertheless, the incident serves as an important historical example of how technology has been widely embraced: new tools make doing everything simpler, not just enjoying things.

Voyeurism suspect apparently caught on video taking up-skirt videos in Seattle. #Q13FOX https://t.co/Nz4MYylpyz pic.twitter.com/JNXVhICmNX

— FOX 13 Seattle (@fox13seattle) January 25, 2018

The time for prompt-based AI art generators to have their VP-210 moment is now. It was only a matter of time before programmes like Mid journey, DALL E, and Stable Diffusion started to proliferate in the summer of 2022 before users started developing hypersexualized and stereotypical representations of women to fill social media profiles and market as NFTs. However, critics of AI should avoid equating the technology’s intrinsic potential and worth with its flagrant abuses, especially when those abuses are overtly sexist.

Similarly, if supporters of the AI art revolution want to stand up for it, they must demonstrate that they are prepared to engage in this discussion and find solutions. If they don’t, the movement will lose credibility, and the criticized technology will have an even harder time defending itself.

Also, read – The Big Battle About AI Art? Which Side Do You Favor?

The social media world is shifting

Social media has a long history of being blamed for women’s low body satisfaction and self-esteem. This issue could become worse if AI art tools are misused. A fast search on the most prominent social media platforms yields a number of accounts dedicated to presenting AI creations depicting photorealistic women (for phrases we’re choosing not to expose her to discourage their use).

These accounts contain pictures that range from being tasteful and creative to being blatantly hideous and sexual. The majority belong to the latter group, offering objectifying and even parodic depictions of women. While we’ve chosen to leave out their names to avoid giving a platform to those who, in the opinion of most experts, propagate stereotypes and harm, we’ve included photographs from various tales of this nature in this piece.

While well-intended content regulations from programmes like DALL-E and Mid journey prevent users from incorporating “adult content” and “gore” in their prompt craft, the near-endless flexibility of language allows users to sidestep much of these policies’ constraints with some ease. This situation has been made worse because many AI systems already have prejudices towards women. Additionally, nothing prevents people from creating and refining their AI models, which would completely free them from such limitations.

Objectification of women is clarified.

The complicated, nuanced, and important conversations around the objectification-empowerment dynamic of women in the fashion, entertainment, and porn sectors centre on the agency and dignity of people. What makes deepfakes so repugnant is identical to what makes the reductive and debased images of AI-generated women feel so sinister: the technology removes those bothersome moral hangups surrounding consent and individuality and distils the very essence of sexual objectification into its purest form.

Images created by AI art tools that feature human subjects on a large scale frequently combine the familiar and the foreign. Some even contend that their capacity to simultaneously highlight and subvert the uncanny valley in artistic and thought-provoking ways contributes to their appeal.

The AI-generated ladies that are so frequently found in accounts on Twitter and Instagram cannot be called to be human. They are much more disturbing than previous depictions, not merely because algorithms used to create them were trained on untold billions of photographs of real women but also because the images were created by specifying sexually suggestible body regions based on prompts. As a result, innumerable faces and bodies are combined to create a bizarre, echoing phantasm that passes for reality.

Can AI art tools honour women in their place?

The distinction between empowering and objectifying becomes quickly hazy. There are some female-run social media accounts that post AI-generated content that purport to praise women in their diversity, attractiveness, and cultural contexts. Accounts like this tend to present women from the shoulders up and resemble something more akin to actual human beings, as opposed to making and uploading caricatures that have been reduced to little more than their sexual organs. This is a step in the right direction, yet even on these pages, the majority of the ladies are portrayed as having startlingly identical bone structures and body types to one another, a problem known as the “same-face syndrome” that has long plagued Disney productions.

I don’t know why, but I feel different today 💀 GM! ❄️ #AiArt #AIIA pic.twitter.com/xrgRruqSNb

— k n y l x (@knylx_art) January 12, 2023

These degree disparities do, however, matter. For instance, more NFT collections are starting to integrate AI in their design, and many of those that portray women do so in arguably respectful and creative ways. One such collection is Muses, which created its NFTs using AI’s interpretation of paintings by artist Eva Adamian of the naked female figure. According to the project website, the idea for the collection came about because we wanted to express the “boundless, inclusive, and uncovered beauty” of women.

This issue is not brand-new

It’s nothing new for women to be objectified in artistic mediums; AI has just made it simpler. Instagram’s algorithm swiftly steers you away from accounts featuring AI-generated ladies and toward others with a similar theme, but graphic designers have manually designed the women on these sites. This serves as an illustration. There are few stylistic distinctions between the two in terms of how they view and portray women. Objectification is objectification independent of the media in which it is conveyed, much as AI art is art in a different expression.

The fight for reform needs to be led by AI proponents.

Women have been portrayed in the art using every medium previously available, across a spectrum spanning from the dignified to the one-dimensional. The most recent innovation utilized in this method is AI. Ironically, it is a sign of progress that we are finally having the difficult and important talk about how AI contributes to the objectification of women. Fundamentally, the problem that drives individuals to use technology to minimize women to their sexuality alone is the same as it has always been.

This is something that proponents of AI and AI art tools should remember. Proponents frequently make the claim that while it is sad that these tools are being used to steal the ideas and creations of artists, this is not a justification for rejecting the technology entirely or for downplaying the good it is accomplishing in the world. Surely the spread of instruments that enable billions of people throughout the world to express themselves creatively validates their existence?

They do, is the answer. The other query, though, is whether those who support AI would acknowledge the legitimacy of objections that are more about human dignity and sexism than they are about the ethics of the art world.

Before they catch up to every other piece of technology we use in our daily lives, AI art tools will have to pass through a ring of valid and hollow criticism. They must endure the storm until that time, even if it includes the dissemination of sexist imagery made possible by the instruments. Every phone that followed after the Kyocera VP-210 made it simpler to take pictures of ladies without getting their permission. Any reasonable individual can and should feel bothered by the such fact. However, such reprehensible conduct serves as a weak counterargument to the concept of the camera phone in general. The same as with any other technology, society must find a method to advance AI while attempting to limit instances of misuse to a minimum. Now is the perfect time for supporters of AI art to take the initiative.