The viral trend of creating a personal caricature with the help of artificial intelligence has conquered social networks, but the fun comes with less obvious data privacy risks, warns journalist Andrew Griffin in an analysis dedicated to the phenomenon.
In recent days, AI-made caricatures that subtly exaggerate users’ traits, profession or passions have become ubiquitous on social platforms.
The process is simple: users upload a photo of themselves to an app like ChatGPT and request that a caricature be created based on the image and information already known about them.
The popularity of the trend is huge, and the number of people who have created at least one such caricature is most likely in the millions across the globe.
However, journalist Andrew Griffin points out that before participating, users should stop for a moment and think about what they are offering in return, reports The Independent.
The impact on the environment
One of the frequently raised criticisms concerns the environmental impact, as generating images with the help of AI consumes significant amounts of energy and water to cool the servers.
However, Andrew Griffin points out that this consumption is not fundamentally different from that associated with the use of any artificial intelligence system, and that the cartoon trend does not, in itself, represent a major danger to the environment.
The real issues: personal data and privacy
The real concerns are about privacy. Creating a caricature involves giving the AI extremely valuable data: a detailed photo of the face and information about your personal life, profession or hobbies. This data may later be used in ways that users cannot anticipate.
Artificial intelligence models work on the basis of large volumes of personal data, and the companies that develop them are motivated to collect as much information as possible. Once provided, personal images and details could end up in AI training sets without the user’s knowledge or control.
Another sensitive aspect is advertising. Although ads have been the foundation of the Internet for decades, they are only now beginning to be integrated into chatbots. With their introduction, systems become more efficient the more they know about users.
Between utility and risk
The caricatures generated often reflect the life and personality of users, as chatbots use information from previous conversations. This can be useful, removing the need to constantly provide context, but the same database can also be exploited for less friendly purposes, such as advertising or continuous training of AI systems.
Although privacy policies explain the use of data to improve services and prevent abuse, it remains impossible to know exactly how this information will be used in the future.
