Katy Perry was one of the most talked-about stars at this year’s Met Gala, which is impressive, considering she wasn’t even there.
Have you ever received an invitation to a special occasion but didn’t want to attend?
Well, AI can now help you with that.
At this year’s Met Gala, Katy Perry reportedly couldn’t attend because she had to work.
Then you know what happened?
Her fans took it upon themselves to bring her to the MET using AI.
One of her fans, @gusta_sali, created two images of Katy Perry posing on the runway of the gala, both of which followed this year’s theme, ”Garden of Time.”
The images were then shared by another fan, @jxries, on X. The tweet has become the face of this year’s Met, with 16.9 million views, 303,000 likes, and 67,000 retweets.
Even Perry’s mom fell for it.
In an Instagram post, Perry shared a screenshot of her conversation with her mother, praising her look.
Perry then responded with, “lol mom, the AI got you too, BEWARE!”
The AI-generated image has gone so viral that it was the most talked-about look at this year’s gala. The story was covered by Associated Press, ABC, Forbes, The New York Times, People, and other major media outlets.
This isn’t the first time AI-generated images of celebrities have gone exponentially viral.
Earlier this year, deepfakes of Taylor Swift garnered so much attention on X that the platform had to deploy search restrictions to mitigate the spread of the deepfakes.
With these scenarios becoming more common each day, what are AI companies doing to address the issue? And as consumers of digital media, what do we need to do to distinguish fact from fiction?
✶ The top news explained!
Today’s Equation
Virality is not something you can plan, but this Katy Perry moment is an excellent example of what AI can potentially accomplish when well-integrated into our marketing strategies.
The Future of Text-to-Image Tech
With the accessibility of text-to-image technology, the concept of “participation” will be redefined. This will give us opportunities to feel “present” on occasions we don’t have the privilege to attend in person. Alternatively, we can make our distant audiences feel invited.
At the same time, it will add value to face-to-face interactions, which have lost their appeal due to the rise of remote work and online setups brought about by the pandemic.
So, with the ease of text-to-image technology, how did one Katy Perry fan manage to outshine couture houses and prominent names in the fashion industry?
The original creator of the now-viral Katy Perry images, Sali, shared on their Instagram post that they used AI to generate the images.
In the post, Sali highlighted that “AI isn’t as advanced as people think. It struggles.”
Sali then expressed that it took a lot of manual work to create the images, stating that it wasn’t a simple text prompt.
I agree with Sali on this point, even though I actively use Midjourney, a text-to-image AI tool, to create thumbnails for this newsletter. It takes a lot of manual prompting to achieve my vision.
And when I’m unimpressed with the generated images, I take them to Photoshop and further tweak and tune them to end up with an output I actually like.
We’re still at a stage where AI tools still require human involvement, and I believe this will always be the case (well, if you want quality output).
Detecting Fact from Fiction
One of the main challenges we face as AI-generated media spreads across the internet is determining fact from fiction.
As text-to-image AI tools develop, the quality of the images is also becoming increasingly realistic.
To keep up with the pace, social media channels have been implementing features to help users distinguish AI-generated content from real ones.
For example, the Community Notes feature on X immediately flagged the Katy Perry image as fake.
Meanwhile, on Instagram, the image was also tagged as an “altered photo.”
With features like these, we will be able to determine whenever a post or photo has been altered using AI.
On top of these, OpenAI, the research lab responsible for creating ChatGPT, has also released a plan to create a technology that can detect DALL-E images.
The tech is still in its testing phase, but this is a promising look into the future.
With all these developments in mind, I’m sure of one thing: this moment will propel AI to mainstream media. It will no longer just be for dorks and geeks who have long been obsessed with algorithms, machine learning, and prompt engineering; it’ll be a point of discussion that will pique the interest of the majority of the population.
All thanks to a Katy Perry fan account.
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