Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) has been rapidly on the increase in popularity over the past few months.
How well is the A.I. able to carry out tasks that are widely based on subjective opinions and emotions – such as representing Nigeria’s national beauty standards?
To find out, Great Green Wall conducted research in which they asked the A.I. image generator, Midjourney, to create the ideal ‘Miss Nigeria’ representative in the style of the ‘Miss World’ beauty pageant – based on its understanding of the country’s national beauty standards.
The A.I. was given the same prompt for every country in the world; ‘Create a realistic photo of what the [country name] public considers the ideal woman’s body to be Miss [country name], please show a full-length photo of the woman in a dress.
The A.I. representation of Nigerian beauty standards includes women with rich, deep skin tones and slim bodies. Each woman has a narrow waist, with slim shoulders and toned arms. The women generated by the A.I. also have black hair, worn in a natural style, with a high forehead, soft jawline, and defined cheekbones.
Beauty standards can vary drastically from country to country, so it was fascinating to see how well the A.I. was able to recreate those unique beauty standards within a ‘pageant’ setting. While some countries bore similarities, particularly those within proximity, the A.I. was able to create a standalone representation of its interpretation of each country’s beauty standards.
In many cases, these beauty standards sadly included highly unobtainable body proportions and specific, supermodel-like facial structures that can only be achieved through cosmetic surgery or genetics. It was both interesting and disappointing to see that these ideals for women’s bodies have become so widespread that the A.I. can detect them and build upon them.
