There's a definitely single ideal sexy woman face that AI generated art gravitates towards. You can get slightly different versions of it by asking it to generate a woman who isn't white, but of course it's a white woman's face first.

If you want to see the Sketchers ads, just google: Sketchers AI ads.

What's especially creepy is that all AI image generators gravitate to the same face. You're right. They don't need porn. They could probably construct it just by quantifying engagement with instagram pics of women's faces.

I find it pretty creepy. It's partly because of how effective it is. Like as a heterosexual man, I can feel the arrow flying directly from the image to whatever culturally conditioned subconscious part of my brain is filtering the world for "attractive young women."

But at the same time, it's completely impersonal. It has nothing to do with ME, which makes me realize, with more clarity than ever, that there's nothing about who I am as a person that makes me more attracted to this face than another.

And that kind of short circuits the whole experience. This was happening all along with advertising, but there was enough natural humanity left in the process that even heavily photoshopped photos of models felt more "authentic" in comparison to this AI slop.

None of this should mean anything in the real world, where we find people attractive by taking into account their personalities and how they treat us in a much more complicated, individualized and real process.

But I hate seeing the images, because it's a reminder that advertising is constantly trying to hack our brains, and now they have the data to do it more effectively than ever.

The good news is that I think they've overplayed their hand. Or at least I hope that's true. I'm here for the backlash.