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The Uproar Over Vogue's AI-generated Ad Isn't Just About Fashion 97

Posted by BeauHD from the artificial-diversity dept.
Longtime Slashdot reader SonicSpike shares a report from TechCrunch: Sarah Murray recalls the first time she saw an artificial model in fashion: It was 2023, and a beautiful young woman of color donned a Levi's denim overall dress. Murray, a commercial model herself, said it made her feel sad and exhausted. The iconic denim company had teamed up with the AI studio Lalaland.ai to create "diverse" digital fashion models for more inclusive ads. For an industry that has failed for years to employ diverse human models, the backlash was swift, with New York Magazine calling the decision "artificial diversity."

"Modeling as a profession is already challenging enough without having to compete with now new digital standards of perfection that can be achieved with AI," Murray told TechCrunch. Two years later, her worries have compounded. Brands continue to experiment with AI-generated models, to the consternation of many fashion lovers. The latest uproar came after Vogue's July print edition featured a Guess ad with a typical model for the brand: thin yet voluptuous, glossy blond tresses, pouty rose lips. She exemplified North American beauty standards, but there was one problem -- she was AI generated.

The internet buzzed for days, in large part because the AI-generated beauty showed up in Vogue, the fashion bible that dictates what is and is not acceptable in the industry. The AI-generated model was featured in an advertisement, not a Vogue editorial spread. And Vogue told TechCrunch the ad met its advertising standards. To many, an ad versus an editorial is a distinction without a difference. TechCrunch spoke to fashion models, experts, and technologists to get a sense of where the industry is headed now that Vogue seems to have put a stamp of approval on technology that's poised to dramatically change the fashion industry. Amy Odell, a fashion writer and author of a recently published biography on Gwyneth Paltrow, put it simply: "It's just so much cheaper for [brands] to use AI models now. Brands need a lot of content, and it just adds up. So if they can save money on their print ad or their TikTok feed, they will."
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The Uproar Over Vogue's AI-generated Ad Isn't Just About Fashion More

The Uproar Over Vogue's AI-generated Ad Isn't Just About Fashion

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  • Humans are obsolete. Get used to it.

    • I wouldn't say that.

      But that our outward appearance is the easiest part to fake, that doesn't surprise me too much.

      • OF "Models" are up a creek, when the basement dwellers can create a whole character to sell that will do whatever pays the most.

        Which will drive down revenue for everyone except those skimming $ off the top, namely the OF owners.

        • I gotta admit, those AI video shorts of pinup girls are getting pretty good, and I can't tell they are AI generated. So yeah, train an AI on OF feeds, and all the real people get put out of business.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There are SO many artists, musicians, models, actors, and such freaking out. They based their life around something that now anyone can do. It happens.

      Software developers are next. It's another job that 99% of the people working the field are not very good and basically a Drinking Bird could replace them.

      • It's worse than that. We're finding out that the general population doesn't really care about the human experience of art and music, and often just want content to consume to make the pain go away for a while.

        • he general population doesn't really care about the human experience of art and music, and often just want content to consume to make the pain go away for a while.

          ??

          Listening to music to make "pain go away"....is this really a thing?

        • How many (tens?) of /. articles have we had on some group or another using 500 words saying how bad technology X is, how it's defective, and any other negatives just to avoid saying "We're losing jobs, losing contracting opportunities, we're losing customers, we're losing revenue, ..."?

          Pretty any creative field, from advertising, writing, marketing, print industry, fashion, or commercial art is in for negative times.

          A tell-tale sign will be when Google officially announces large numbers of 'unindexing' or '

    • I don't hear anyone saying the 2,000 billionaires in this country are obsolete. Heck I think the multi multi-millionaires will do okay with the exception of them periodically being murdered by one of the billionaires like they do in Russia.

      But yeah for everybody else it's going to be hard scrabble living of the sort you see in places like Sudan or palestine. Periodic bouts of mass starvation and if you get out of line they bomb you with drones.

      Short term what we are going to see is widespread confli

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        There are two ways out of this: Regulation, or revolution.

        I'd much rather choose the regulation route, but if politicians can't or won't do that, they'll end up dealing with a revolution.

        • The "regulation" word is an illusion, it has been thoroughly subverted for decades.

          https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs... [bbc.com]

        • You can't beat a modern standing army. Hell you can't be a modern police force. The ruling class will have drones and they will blow you to Kingdom come.

          The only way out of this would be democracy but that's crumbling and nobody seems interested in saving it, the left wing is too obsessed with revolution and with the exciting idea that a bunch of 18 to 24 year olds are going to save us.

          • You'd need an endless supply of loyal brown shirts to keep your military and police loyal. Right now it's easy because the members of the military believe they are under the Constitution which is under the people. You subvert that structure and place your service members under one man and demand loyalty, that's going to be hard. Especially in a fascist state where each fascist has ambitions of overthrowing the current fascist and are constantly jockeying for power through any means necessary. It's a terribl

        • What good is it to regulate it in one country, when advertising interests have 195 other countries they can go to for source material? How are you going to prove it wasn't a "real" model? How are AI-generated models any different than massively airbrushed or photoshopped models?
      • Not sure why this is marked "troll"... it's a fair question. The main ways we have to distribute wealth is through labour, and return on venture capital. If labour is no longer a viable method because a large majority of people won't be wanted for work anymore, and we keep the system as is, then you end up with a massive welfare system that is inevitably going to collapse, while people living off return on investments will continue to do well until economic collapse follows, with no middle class to prop i
        • You immediately go to the concept of a massive welfare system that has to collapse.

          The implication is that you can't sustain any other system but raw unfettered capitalism. That's because when you are in the critical age demographic of 4 to 14 that's what you were taught so it's programmed into your brain from a time when you were physically incapable of critical thought or analyzing. That's not your fault that's just how human brains work and it's why children are targeted.

          This is why I think we ar
          • Ì did not "go there", I described what I think will happen if we do nothing and just let the current system evolve naturally. Plenty of ideas for other systems, from a full blown planned economy, to the current system with a UBI, different ways to levy taxes to pay for that, and so on. And like you, I am pessimistic about it happening. But not because people cannot fathom another system, or even that people wouldn't be able to agree on a system. The problem is that one way or the other, the "haves"
    • What we wanted: Robots that were better and cheaper at doing dishes than we are. What we got: Robots that are much better at creating art (pictures, videos, music, etc.) than we are.

  • So maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Monday August 04, 2025 @05:32PM (#65566216) Journal

    This just signifies the end of the era of "fashion model" as a lucrative career choice?

    I'm not a fan of AI getting used in marketing/advertising at all. But that's mostly because I find most of it can still be picked out from reality. When they try to create new animated characters or mascots, for example? The AI attempts I've seen, so far, just have this set of features that clue you in that they aren't original drawings by a person. With people, they may be getting pretty good at starting with an AI generated person and letting a real artist Photoshop it to fix it/clean it up so it passes as real. But mostly, we're still used to seeing the people with odd numbers of fingers or toes and other AI mishaps.

    When they get this honed to perfection? Yeah, it's not going to make a lot of sense to pay real humans to model clothing for your average sale flyers or online ads. The value will still be there for a popular celebrity figure to wear something in an ad, because then you're buying that association with their fame. But I think most models should come to grips with the idea the gravy train is reaching the end of the line.

    • The sad part is that you can't enjoy any of it. Looking at an attractive woman used to be enjoyable but now I will just assume it is AI and feel nothing about it. Same for landscapes, cute animal photos/videos.. any media really. Now if you enjoy anything you risk enjoying something that never existed.
      • I'd go further. The entire internet, social media, crypto, AI, it's self justifying now , unquestionable that it lacks virtue , every niche, no matter how trite or bad, has paying adherants. Tire kickers, slackers, fraudsters, people fearful of being left behind ... I can see various use cases, but... you have to understand its at deal with the devil. It takes your knowledge, and gives it to others.

        - could end up on the internet, searchable, happened last week

        - could end up searchable in law enforcement sof
      • im fine with enjoying things that never existed; they can exist to me i love ai art; not all of it; not the garbage; but the careful iterative process of prompts and manual editing can make something of value and meaning and emotion when its done right im happy that creativity is being opened up to new kinds of people who have ideas that normal artist or fashion types do not

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Oh no, heavens forbid you enjoy something that never existed! Get your head out of your ass and quit huffing your farts.

        Stuff people enjoy that never really existed: TV shows / characters. Or 99% of movies. Or games. Or novels. Or paintings that aren't still life / portraits. Or religion / creation myths. Or your own imaginatio.... oh wait, you don't seem to have that last one. But anyways...

        99% of what humans enjoy has never existed.

        • The difference is that the things you mentioned were never created to try to fool people into thinking it was real. The only work of fiction I can even think of that accomplished that was the original airing of war of the worlds on radio. People thought it was real news and panicked. Now anyone can create something that looks real and it will change us. As if misinformation wasn't a problem before, now we have video of it! The only way to protect yourself is not to believe in any of it.

          • ...the things you mentioned were never created to try to fool people into thinking it was real.

            To the contrary, it took literally thousands of years before works of fiction stopped purporting to be "this really happened." As late as the 18th century, many of the novels in English still pretended to being nonfiction. (And not to mention, of course, stuff like A Million little Pieces and Go Ask Alice.)

            The difference is, works of Large Language Models (often called "AI") are mish-mashes of the work of actual humans, with no actual human content.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          Oh no, heavens forbid you enjoy something that never existed! Get your head out of your ass and quit huffing your farts.

          Stuff people enjoy that never really existed: TV shows / characters. Or 99% of movies. Or games. Or novels. Or paintings that aren't still life / portraits. Or religion / creation myths. Or your own imaginatio.... oh wait, you don't seem to have that last one. But anyways...

          99% of what humans enjoy has never existed.

          In the context of beautiful women, sure the "by the gods" bit should be "go out and meet actual women".

          This will require some activity on their part, like bathing which might be a hurdle.

    • Yep. You're on the money. It's the association that matters. "Look Victoria Beckham wears this! And you can have it for 29.99 too!" Ridiculous.

      To paraphrase Mile from Breaking Bad:
      "Just because you wear Jesse James, don't make you Jesse James."

    • When every job in the world has been replaced by AI, who's gonna buy your stuff ?

    • I'm not a fan of AI getting used in marketing/advertising at all. But that's mostly because I find most of it can still be picked out from reality.

      That's probably why it is so useful for advertizing: the goal there is not to reproduce reality but an idealized approximation of it and some of the photoshopping ad companies have done in the past has produced results far worse than current AI is capable of.

      • Being a long time slashdotter, I'm not sure the fashion industry sees me as a 'target market', but...

        When I look at a model wearing some clothes, I kind of need them to look a bit like me. I'm not really able to do the mental gymnastics to guessimate how it might look on me, even if it looks good on the model. As fabulously good looking as I am, I'm not 'idealised' in any way. As such, I'd really appreciate seeing 'ordinary people' modelling clothes, because then I could at least get a feeling for how it mi

        • I was always confused by the fashion industry using models that looked like heroin addicts for exactly that reason. That's not what the average person in the US looks like, and the ones that do look like that can't afford those clothes!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      Maybe thought should have to disclose that its fake, I recall France or somewhere having that sort of requirement for digitally altered photos. From both a body image perspective and a truth in advertising perspective disclosure would make sense.

    • This just signifies the end of the era of "fashion model" as a lucrative career choice?

      AI can't walk down the catwalk yet. The career will exist for some time to come.

      • AI _can_ create a video of a model walking down a catwalk that is indistinguishable from the real thing. How many people go to fashion shows in person? I've never been to one in my entire life.
    • It never was a lucrative career choice. That's why I chose engineering instead; at 65 years old, I'm still doing it. Over my lifetime, I make more money than most supermodels. (The same argument apples to why I didn't become a drug dealer.)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by MogNuts ( 97512 )
      Exactly right because the so called journalist who wrote the article clearly showed they never worked in fashion or with models and have no idea what they are talking about. https://ichelebrands.com/ [ichelebrands.com] lingerie said they would love to hire but most fashion models are a nightmare to work with. They do not want to work, are flaky and charge too much ($250 per hour!) for a commodity. They think they are hot but so is every model. they do not get they are a dime a dozen. there is 500 women lining up who will repl

  • Now the companies can try everything (Score:4, Insightful)

    by silvergig ( 7651900 ) on Monday August 04, 2025 @05:35PM (#65566226)
    Companies can have AI create models of every possible persuasion - straight, queer, black, white, brown, blonde, red, brunette, huge boobs, small boobs, and 100 lbs. or 500 lbs. Let them do it, see what people actually want to see and what sells.

    Which is going to be scary when they have to finally admit what people actually want to see.
    • This would be the ultimate end game of targeted advertising, would it not? Collect enough data to determine the victim's preference and type, then use AI to fill in the advertisement with their 'type'.

      If my data has to be collected and I still have to see advertisements, at least make them easy on my eyes.
    • >when they have to finally admit what people actually want to see.

      They never will have to admit that. Even science will never admit that. Anyone who proves such a thing will be declared and ist and never publish again. Fashion companies have been bouncing off of that red line for decades already, it's just not going to happen.

      As for the subject at hand, fashion models haven't been realistic for 60 or 70 years. Going full artificial isn't a leap. Fashion models are just going to have to find other work,
    • I'm pretty sure we already know what people want to see. If they wanted to see a 500 lb person than there would be 500 lb people modelling things already.

    • Sounds like the matrix ....

    • Not only that, they can micro-target the model to each customer... so you can see exactly what the clothes would look like on the false image you have of yourself.

  • And Vogue told TechCrunch the ad met its advertising standards. To many, an ad versus an editorial is a distinction without a difference.

    If editorials are considered the same as the ads, doesn't that just mean it's really just a catalog?

    • Yes. And I think a better question is who are the "many", and what other publications do they run?

  • Vanity fair / All models should be generated. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Monday August 04, 2025 @05:46PM (#65566256)

    I can't believe modelling is still a thing in this day and age. It's a profession fed by unachievable standards and vanity, and the faster it disappears, the better; the sooner can young people move on from a beauty cold war and focus on something meaningful in life.

    What we should have is the world where all models on online and TV listings are generated to your settings. Choose your body shape, hair, skin colour and the ads will be generated to show how YOU would look like in those particular clothes, not some kind of an ideal human being that bears no resemblance to you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by evanh ( 627108 )

      Oh, right, like the unachievable standards are not going to be on display any longer.

    • With AI modelling is going the way of buggy whip manufacturers.
      I'm not sure 'models' should be protected when other 'professions' are sacrificed.
      Models clearly have alternatives....
      Ouch, did I go too far with that last statement?
      Well, sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • The fashion and the career are two distinctly different things. There are such a thing as plus sized models as well. There will always be a need to display fashion designs in some way regardless of what standards and vanity is associated with the industry.

    • That's foolish. If you make all models look like you, the US world will be polarized even more than it already is. The major reason why America is so full of hate these days is because social media curate a personal world view for everyone that makes people and ideas outside their cocoons look alien and dangerous. If all you see is body types that look like you pretty soon you'll have all new kinds of body type racism.

      • Well, we wouldn't call it racism then, would we? Racism is based on race, not body shape.

        Stop calling everything racism, people.

        • Body shape ==> Race for people in the Late Middle Ages. The kind of people whose grasp of biology is pretty weak.

          • I'm aware that race is a social construct (which is an entire different bullshit story on its own) but body shape has nothing to do with it - body shape distribution spans the entire population, regardless of their race.

            • I disagree. Ask the person in the street. Big flat nose, curly hairs...negro. Slanted eyelids.... Chinese. Big tall and white... Skandinavian. It doesn't take much to look at a different body and make facile classifications. Science has spent the last 100 years debunking the idea that external differences imply mental differences. Not long ago in historical terms people genuinely believed that skin colour was related to the presence of absence of intelligence (also gender). And even if you were white, you w

    • That's not the purpose of the clothes ads. The purspose isn't to show a woman watching the ads how the clothes would actually fit her, the purpose is to let her imagine that wearing those clothes she can look just like the model who is wearing those clothes in the ad.

    • The purpose of advertising and modelling isn't to show you how YOU would look in those clothes (which AI can now do for you - Google has virtual try-on), but more to be aspirational - if you buy our brand then you too will have this amazing lifestyle. All advertising is the same - not just fashion.

    • A very nice ideal, certainly.

      Look at it from the clothing sellers' point of view - particularly of high fashion: do you think they are going to sell more or less of their clothing if potential buyers can see themselves in those garments? Or are most buyers going to look at themselves, realize they're not model-beautiful or -proportioned, and decide "well if I'm going to look dumpy and average anyway, I might as well just buy some cheap stuff from Target"?

      They're in the business of SELLING CLOTHES. At the

  • Life is mostly fake anyway (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JamesTRexx ( 675890 ) on Monday August 04, 2025 @05:48PM (#65566270) Journal

    All the beautiful things you see in media are fake anyway because people buy into the dreams presented by those in power.

    Go outside and take a long walk through nature (ignore all the trash left by stupid people, or better yet, collect it and dispose responsibly) and experience actual beauty with actual value.

  • By definition... (Score:3)

    by kenh ( 9056 ) on Monday August 04, 2025 @05:50PM (#65566280) Homepage Journal

    By definition fashion is superficial, concerned only with looks, nothing more. By 'employing' AI fashion models, isn't this just the next logical step from "Showroom Dummies"?

    Amazingly, it is cheaper/better for a bunch of guys to put bras on their heads and "Weird Science" themselves a (virtual) fashion model for an ad campaign instead of simply calling an agency, hire a model, a hair and makeup team, and a photographer...

    As others have noted, this outcome was 100% predictable, almost a certainty.

    • I'm not sure AI models for advertising etc will stick, at least not for major brands. There's a reason companies like to hire celebrities (movie, music, sports stars, etc) for advertising campaigns, and like to use the same small stable of supermodels (i.e. also celebrities).

      In the fashion industry I'm pretty sure that building a brand image trumps having a stick figure to hang your clothes on, and part of that is associating your brand with celebrities whose image you want to be associated with. Look at th

  • Supermodels? (Score:4, Funny)

    by kbrannen ( 581293 ) on Monday August 04, 2025 @06:57PM (#65566446)

    Supermodels. Heh! Nothing super about them... spoiled, stupid little stick figures with poofy lips who think only about themselves. Feh! -- Edna Mode

  • Soon out of work models (Score:3)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Monday August 04, 2025 @09:05PM (#65566626)
    Will be holding cardboard signs on sidewalks and roadsides saying "will pose for food"
  • Cracks are forming in the attractive girls union: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Modeling has always been about some idealized image that doesn't represent real people in any reasonable way. They start with exceptionally attractive people and then use makeup, lighting, and lens effects to make them look even better. And when that's not enough, in more recent times they've been using Photoshop.

    The human model has been holding the artists back from the completely artificial image they've always been pursuing.

  • There is no point in discussing if fashion models should get replaced by AI or not, because they won't be replaced with some fixed avatar.

    The future is of course, that you take a selfie and then you see how YOU look in the clothes. The techniques to create a 360 degree view from six smartphone photos are already there, the tech to render that in the clothes is already there.

    What's missing for the industry is the perfection. They don't want their clothes to look bad, they really need to look like they intend

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