To Likeness or Not to Likeness
As I have been training AI image models for quite time now, I have been noticing a pattern in the real world, not in the models.
Expectations for what counts as a "real" image are perhaps decreasing, or at least a high level of realism is no longer expected—and that seems to be acceptable. This is interesting to observe because, with this new mindset, we are witnessing the emergence of a new aesthetic for our times.
For example, a friend of mine shared the logo for her new business, and I pointed out a visible mistake—at least to my eyes. The silhouette of the woman in the logo was missing part of her arm. I mentioned this to my friend, but she was not concerned about the mistake. She simply laughed and said it was totally fine.
More recently, two professionals posted pictures promoting their businesses using AI-generated images in which their likenesses were not very accurate. It was not merely a filter smoothing their skin; the model had slightly altered their facial features. Trainers spend a great deal of time evaluating models based on human and object likeness: Does this look like the person in the image? Does this look like a real logo from the real world?
As evaluators, we compare generated outputs with established conventions from the real world. For example, logos typically do not use captions beneath their emblems. Brands do not necessarily choose names or designs that explicitly describe the industries they operate in; often, they are driven by aesthetics and symbolism instead, as in the cases of Apple and Amazon.
When evaluating human images, we generally consider it unappealing when a person's appearance is rendered in ways that contradict their real features. Differences in likeness matter.
Yet outside the evaluation environment, these inconsistencies seem to matter less and less. Perhaps we are not only adapting to AI-generated images, we are also developing new visual expectations on what means to be real-real human. We have for example passed the time in which we would comment or point filters that make people "prettier" ( like a photoshoot edit from the 2000s) and now entering a venture in which people might look very different from its original version in images. Looking different in images shouldn't be something viewed with suspicion or disapproval = we change our looks: our lips, our breasts, our hair, don't we?
I don't have any conclusions about the direction our human aesthetics will move toward.
As someone who trains AI, I am a bridge in between, telling the machine what it looks like to be or look like a human, while on the other side I see humans wanting to look and be less like humans. Which is not contradictory.
Just a human thing. And I am in between.