A recently announced AI influencer beauty contest titled ‘Miss AI’, proclaimed as the world’s first, has already attracted a rather predictable backlash. The AI pageant is backed by Fanvue, as well as the World AI Creator Awards (WAICA), which is likely owned by the latter. Fanvue is an influencer subscription service set up to help creators interact with their fans using AI, but it now appears to be seeking to compete with OnlyFans through the promotion of AI-generated influencers.
There’s no doubt that the forthcoming beauty pageant has already succeeded as a marketing exercise for Fanvue, but they may be playing with fire, given the increasing hostility with which any AI-generated adult content aimed at men is now viewed. Writing for the left-wing British newspaper The Guardian, the journalist Arwa Mahdawi has opined that Miss AI ‘feels like a monumental step backwards’. Familiar buzz words come thick and fast with Mahdawi bitterly trashing AI models that ‘take every toxic gendered beauty norm and bundle them up into (a) completely unrealistic package’.
The contest is being held by Fanvue, in conjunction with the The World AI Creator Awards (WAICA). The promotors have proudly played up the historic significance of the event, pointing out on their home page, that it comes 200 years after the world’s first beauty pageant. This appears to refer to the ‘Belle of the Anna-Ball’ which according to Wikipedia, was established in Hungary as an annual beauty contest in 1825 (and is still being held each year to this day). Before that, beauty contests were already a thing as early as medieval Europe, with one example being the May Day tradition in England of selecting a ‘May Queen’. As a formal AI beauty contest, WAICA’s is likely the first ‘event’, although most of the top NSFW AI image generators, as well as AI girlfriend generators, will show the most ‘popular’ and upvoted creations on their homepage. Last year I had an idea to have a regular ‘AI babe of the month’ post, decided by a reader poll, but I never implemented it.
The Miss AI contest will have $20K in prize money (obviously going to the human being behind the winning influencers), with first place receiving $5K. Contestants will be judged by three main criteria – beauty, tech, and ‘social clout’. WAICA elaborates that the beauty criteria itself involves several elements.
Contestants will be judged on some of the classic aspects of pageantry including their beauty, poise, and unique answers to a series of questions like “if you could have one dream to make the world a better place what would it be?”
Two of the four judges who will form the panel that decides the winners are popular AI-generated social influencers themselves. The two human judges are Andrew Bloch and Sally-Ann Fawcett. The latter is a beauty pageant historian. The Guardian article reports bitterly that she was asked if the contest would reinforce detrimental beauty standards.
Are the creators of “Miss AI” worried about their potential detrimental impact on beauty standards? Not really. Sally-Ann Fawcett, a beauty pageant historian who is one of the two real-life judges, has told Forbes she expects the competition to be very inclusive. “This isn’t about bums and boobs and fantasy figures,” said the judge. “Creators have a chance to change the public’s perception of AI women and I hope to play a part in that too by selecting a winner representing the modern world.” Which is very reassuring to hear. However, Fawcett may want to ask the Miss AI pageant to update its website. Because, at the moment, it’s all bums, and boobs and fantasy figures.
Should we be concerned that AI influencers, which this contest highlights, are ‘reinforcing toxic beauty standards’? Well, it’s Arwa Mahdawi’s privilege that she can complain about such things. When men complain about females wanting 6ft men or six figure salaries, they are dismissed as incels or misogynists, and a Guardian article proclaiming the right of Israel to exist is as likely as one attacking the unrealistic standards set by AI boyfriends. Perhaps AI influencers and girlfriends will lead to ‘toxic’ men focusing purely on them, at the expense of beautiful young real women, while the average female like Mahdawi can attract men who prefer strong, independent women with personalities. In other words, it will be the OnlyFans thots who will be left competing with AI-generated pixels for the superficial men, not the majority of women.
