Shereen Wu says leading designer uploaded altered picture, amid fears AI could ‘turn back the clock’ on progress in the industry
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a TikTok about the incident that has been viewed 1.8m times in the last week, Shereen Wu says Michael Costello, a designer who has worked with Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, and Celine Dion, posted a photo to his Instagram from a recent Los Angeles fashion show.
In a statement posted to Instagram on Thursday and deleted less than 24 hours later, Costello denied altering the photo and said the image was “fan art” sent to him by an unspecified source, but he “took responsibility” for sharing it.
While the origin of the altered runway photo is unknown, Wu believes someone – she doesn’t know who – used AI to create the white face that covered hers, a theory Costello echoed in his Instagram post.
“The modified image of Shereen spotlights the possibility that an AI program that has absorbed mainstream beauty preferences may erase the race of a model altogether, turning back the clock on the fashion industry’s progress toward diversity on the runway,” Scafidi said.
As the Cut reported, Costello added to the pile-on, sharing screenshots via Instagram of a supposed DM conversation with Teigen that left him “traumatized, depressed” with “thoughts of suicide”.
After Costello’s threat of legal action over her viral Tiktok, Wu contacted the Model Alliance, an advocacy group for fashion workers, which referred her to a lawyer.
The original article contains 1,032 words, the summary contains 222 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This looks like a bad 15 minute Photoshop job. Why does she think it was AI? Where is the proof AI was used?
Or is this just more news cycle bullshit trying to throw in the latest controversial keywords 🤔
You say “Photoshop” as a generic term for “image editor”, even when there’s no reason to think it was that editor in particular.
Maybe “AI” is just replacing “Photoshop” as a generic term for any digital image manipulation.
Anyone’s face can be altered if you use GIMP somewhere unexpected
CAUTION: NSFW
Air brushing, Photoshop, and AI are specific methodologies, you can’t just use that as a generic term when that will just create more confusion and hide the meaning, especially when the difference is important due to legislation.
I never put out an article saying it was one of them definitively. I just said the style looked similar to another method.
“AI” is not a term for photo editing at all, much less a generic term for it. Using totally wrong words to refer to things doesn’t make you innovative, it makes you a crackpot or a liar.
This is seriously the dumbest take I’ve seen all week and I can’t believe how many people upvoted it.
Or is this just more news cycle bullshit trying to throw in the latest controversial keywords
No, you’re just focusing on the wrong part - this article is about racism, not your favourite new tech…
Then why did they put the name of the latest tech in the title when it’s not even relevant
Because the headline is about what the model said, and the model said that it was AI. Neither the headline nor the article says that she’s right about it, just that her face was altered dramatically, which is absolutely relevant when you consider some of the most widespread uses for visual AI right now. This might have just been photoshop, but it looks a lot like some of the AI-powered TikTok filters, so it’s worth a conversation as to why we feel the need to do this to people’s faces at all.
AI image processing could do the job in two minutes with no skill, whereas manual image editing (even crappily) takes skill and time.
Why assume someone handcrafted it when there’s no evidence?
Because the article specifically said “AI”. It could have just said “edited” and left it at that is the methodology was unknown. But when the methodology is both unknown and doesn’t affect the story at all, it’s bullshit to put a potential lie in the headline just to act relevant to a different hot topic issue.
Why would the designer post the altered “fan art” to his IG, especially without commenting? Got caught and now he’s trying to cover his ass.
Perhaps the designer had no clue the face had been changed. Seems more like he doesn’t want to admit that he didn’t realize the face had been altered. They hold tons of these events and there are so many models wearing many different outfits. Maybe he just recognized the dress and shared.
This is a great example of how people are blind to their own bigotry (I guarantee they saw nothing wrong with this, which is why they proudly posted it), and why titles like “racist” aren’t self imposed, but given by others who can clearly see and/or are impacted directly by the bigot’s actions.
shes so gorg
