In our ongoing series about the impact of AI at Jesuit High School, Jesuit Media writers are focusing on the many ways it affects a Jesuit education.
During Jesuit’s fourth annual Social Justice week, on Wednesday, March 13, juniors, Ingrid Schmidt and Annie Duan presented a workshop on the beauty standards that come with AI.
Ingrid Schmidt, the presenter, was inspired by this concept by seeing how it makes a difference in her own life.
“Seeing the rise of AI on social media and filters and the way that I’ve seen it affect myself and my friends and just wanting to raise awareness about being cautious on social media,” Schmidt said.
The workshop started with students choosing between three photos of influencers and models and deciding which photo they thought was designed by AI. Some of the photos were more obvious in their use of AI, others were not.
“I thought it would be interesting to see how beauty standards relate to AI since I feel like AI is usually very tech heavy. A lot of the discussions around education are on the beauty standards itself and how certain societal norms are affected,” junior Alexa O’Halloran said.
A video was then presented on the use of AI in social media. The video focused on the use of an AI designed influencer, Iana Lopez, who has over 100k followers on Instagram and presents unrealistic beauty standards.
Annie and Ingrid used examples on how AI affects our generation today. They explained how a woman showed a Snapchat filter to a plastic surgeon so she could look like the filter.
“She went to Beverly Hills and met with a plastic surgeon. She took an image on Snapchat that filtered her face, the plastic surgeon proceeded to take a picture of her face, photoshopped her face, and showed her how they can use fillers and other surgeries to achieve the exact filter.”
Senior Jemma Katcher attended this workshop because she’s interested in learning more about the impact AI and media influence can have in the future.
“I found it really interesting that AI is using outdated stereotypes to create unreal models and it’s creating a lot of insecurities for people that may not fall in that ‘slimmer or ideal’ body type.”
They ended the presentation with reflection questions, requiring us to reflect on AI in society and what we can do to avoid comparisons to AI beauty.
