Ẹwàtómi

Filters and AI babies

Young Wife And Mother, 1983 by Rachidi Bissiriou

Dear Bolu,

I hope you’re good. I don’t have a lot to say today but there are a few thoughts I’ve been occupied with, and I would simply highlight them here. I say that like I spend a great deal of time pondering questions and mysteries, but I do not. Most of my days consist of picking reasonable variable names, dashing to the living room for a fresh bowl of snacks and subsequently consuming them in record time, watching video essays on Nolan’s Tenet and Wong Kar-wai’s filmography, and lately, staring into the blackness at some distant star. This is not to say that I don’t think—I do. I think of you an immeasurable lot, and I would not have it any other way.

I have always wondered about filters, those effects we use to enhance our appearances in images and videos. I’ve never been too bothered by them because, I thought, all they did was enhance pictures by changing the lighting, tone, colour, or any other conventional aspects a photographer might naturally manipulate to make the picture pop. This has been my thinking but lately, I’ve had to bin that. I’m late to the party, I know. Forgive me for living under a rock. I realize now that certain filters change, in addition to those conventional aspects, our proportions. They make our noses smaller and pointier. They add freckles to our cheeks indistinguishable from natural ones. They make our faces thinner. And I’m not sure what to make of them. Are we being deceitful when we use such filters? Is there a moral question to be asked of us filter users? Does intent matter when we judge people who use them? Should they even be judged? Of course, I do not refer to filters that add puppy ears or cat whiskers to our faces—they have an obvious zoomorphic motivation, and you don’t see such pictures and say, “Oh, Ẹwàtómi truly has dog ears”. However, for filters Ẹwàtómi uses to generously change her looks by altering tangible aspects of her physiognomy, do we have any personal, moral, or societal obligation to make cases against them? I don’t know. But I did stumble upon a Guardian article around some of the negative effects of beauty filters, and it might be worth a perusal.

Also, in the last few weeks, I've come across several AI-generated baby images. I would share one with you, but I don't have the stomach for viewing any anymore, and the odds are that you've seen your fair share of them. I'm not sure why wave after wave of these images suddenly pervaded social media, but I'm certain I do not like them. If there weren't so many of these baby images, I may not have been bothered. But I saw them everywhere, and people thought and called them “cute”. Babies are cute. Pictures of babies are cute. But AI baby images are not cute. They are neither endearing nor appealing. They're not cute because they're fake. They're fake not because they're not realistic, but because they're not real. Do you seriously want to hug that? No. Stop calling them cute. 

As you countdown to the end of the year, you may find yourself with a bit more time to relax and do some of the other things you love. If that includes reading, may I suggest two short stories by my friend, Jonathan Durunguma. Jonathan's ability to weave important questions into beautiful narratives is wonderful. Don't take my word for it. In fact, don't take my word for anything at all. What you should do in the cab en route to your holiday hotel, on the train to visit your extended family, or when the kids are in the pool and you have some time to yourself, is read One Does Not Simply Explain and Until One Day, It Will Be The Second Thing, and you would be glad you did, dear friend.

Fin.

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Write you soon, merci!

- Wolemercy