Why the Lensa app is proving as popular as it is controversial

By lensa.ai / Instagram

Lensa is the application of the moment, letting users generate stylized fantasy portraits of themselves from photos thanks to artificial intelligence. Launched in 2018, the app has recently proved a runaway success thanks to its new feature for creating "Magic Avatars" in a heroic fantasy style. However, its use raises some ethical questions.

Lensa is the application of the moment, letting users generate stylized fantasy portraits of themselves from photos thanks to artificial intelligence. Launched in 2018, the app has recently proved a runaway success thanks to its new feature for creating "Magic Avatars" in a heroic fantasy style. However, its use raises some ethical questions.

Lensa is a photo-editing app created in 2018 by Prisma Labs, based on artificial intelligence that allows users to transform their photos and selfies into avatars. Prisma Labs already scored a viral hit in 2016 with a roughly similar app that turned smartphone photos into paintings.

But since Lensa launched a new feature, called "Magic Avatar," the app has seen its success surge. In fact, it has become the most downloaded free app in the United States, according to Sensor Tower data.

It's easy to use: you just upload 10 to 20 photo portraits. Then, artificial intelligence (AI) works its magic, retouching user faces to generate stylized, cartoon-like pictures. In short, the new "Magic Avatars" feature turns users' selfies into avatars, on a variety of themes ranging from "Princess" to "Anime." With flawless skin, ramped up contrast and clothes straight out of a fantasy novel, these portraits look like they were made by digital artists.

And that's the first stumbling block. As while the application is all the rage right now, it also raises many questions -- starting with artists' copyright. Artists, seeing these "avatars" go viral on social networks, have sounded the alarm. They claim that Lensa offers little in the way of protection to creators whose art has been used to train the artificial intelligence that powers the application. Some even talk about outright theft (#arttheft). Lensa is based on Stable Diffusion, a machine learning model capable of generating realistic digital images from written descriptions. However, the app needs to be fed with content in order to learn, so the application uses the works of existing artists, but without seeking consent to use their work.

And there's more...

Another cause of controversy is that some Lensa users have been unpleasantly surprised to discover that the application could generate images of them naked. Even more disturbingly, it can create similar images of people whose photos they happen to have on their smartphones, and even of children, despite the fact that adding images of children or nudity is against the app's terms of use.

These kinds of abuses, arising from artificial intelligence in the public domain, once again raise questions about the management and use of personal data, as for other photo editing applications that became popular before Lensa.

A further problematic point raised by Lensa is the hypersexualization of the digital renderings. "Many users -- primarily women -- have noticed that even when they upload modest photos, the app not only generates nudes but also ascribes cartoonishly sexualized features, like sultry poses and gigantic breasts, to their images," explains Olivia Snow, a WIRED magazine contributor, who tested the app.

As for Prisma Labs, Andrey Usoltsev, its CEO and co-founder, said the company was working on updating the privacy policy in an email to WIRED. "The user’s photos are deleted from our servers as soon as the avatars are generated. The servers are located in the US," he said. The application has not, for the moment, addressed the accusations of theft of artists' content.

© Agence France-Presse