The controversy after the appearance in Vogue for the first time of a model created with artificial intelligence

Seraphinne Vallera is the company responsible for the controversial announcement of Guess.

Its creators, Valentina González and Andreea Petrescu, tell the BBC that one of the founders of Guess, Paul Marciano, contacted them through Instagram and asked them to create a model of AI as part of the brand's summer campaign.

“We created 10 models for him and selected one of dark hair and another with light hair, which we then develop,” says González.

González points out that there is often the wrong idea that the generation of images through AI is simple, but that it is actually a complex process.

The company has five employees who create artificial intelligence models, and can take up to a month from the moment the idea arises until the product is finished. And they say they charge up to six figures for a client like Guess.

Felicity Hayward, a large sizes model that has been in the sector for more than a decade, says that using AI models in fashion campaigns “seems lazy and cheap.”

“Or Guess is doing this to create a topic of conversation and get free advertising, or want to reduce costs and do not think about implications,” he says.

Hayward describes Vogue's decision to include the announcement as “very discouraging and quite terrifying”, and he worries that he can undermine years of work in favor of greater diversity in the industry.

The fashion world made real progress to be more inclusive in the 2010. It was there when Valentina Sampaio became the first trans model to parade for Victoria's Secret, Halima Aden was the first model with Hiyab in world campaigns, and brands like Savage X Fenty presented large -sized models on the catwalk.

But in recent years, Hayward believes that the sector has retreated because “they no longer hire them.”

It also thinks that the use of models created with AI is “another kick in the teeth, which will disproportionately affect large -sized models.”

González and Petrescu insist that they do not reinforce narrow beauty canons.

“We do not create unattainable looks; in fact, Guess's model seems quite realistic,” says Petrescu. “Ultimately, all ads are created to look perfect and usually have supermodels, so what we are doing is not different,” he adds.

Both admit that the images of AI on the Instagram page of your company lack diversity and promote unrealistic beauty standards. They claim that they have tried to be more inclusive, but that these publications do not capture user attention.

“We have published images of women with different skin tones, but people do not respond to them: we do not get traction or like you,” Gonzalez tells the BBC.

“After all, we are a business and use Instagram images that create conversation and bring us customers,” he argues.

The company has not yet experienced with the creation of women with large sizes, and argue that “technology is not advanced enough for it.”

Dove designed in 2024 an advertising campaign to highlight the biases of the AI. In the announcement, an image generator is asked to believe the most beautiful woman in the world. The result: virtually indistinguishable women, young, thin and white, with blond hair and blue eyes. The generated images resemble the IA de Guess model.

Hayward is concerned that seeing these unattainable images can have an impact on people's mental health and negatively affect their body image.

Concern for unrealistic beauty canons and the harmful effects they may have is nothing new. But unlike the traditional use of editing programs such as Photoshop, which at least started with a real person, these AI models are created digitally to seem perfect, free of human defects, incoherence or singularities.

Although some personalities such as Ashley Graham, Jameela Jamil and Bella Thorne have spoken against image edition and refuse to make their photos retouched with Photoshop, the use of AI completely eludes this type of conversations.

Vogue's decision to include a generated advertisement has caused a stir in social networks. “Wow! As if beauty expectations were not unreal enough, here comes to make them impossible. Not even the models can compete,” wrote a user in X.

Vanessa Longley, general director of the Beat beneficial organization, specializing in eating disorders, believes that the announcement is “worrying.”

“If people are exposed to images of unrealistic bodies, this can affect their thoughts about their own body, and a bad body image increases the risk of developing an eating disorder,” he says.

To all this is added the lack of transparency.

Although Guess labels his announcement as generated by artificial intelligence, the warning is small and subtle. Readers can ignore it and, at first glance, the image seems totally real.

Sinead Bovell, Exmodel and now a technology businesswoman, wrote an article for five years ago about the risks of the AI replace the models.

Not clearly labeling the contents of AI is “exceptionally problematic,” he says, because he could have a harmful impact on people's mental health.

“The AI is already influencing the canons of beauty. There are young girls who undergo plastic surgery to resemble a face in a filter, and now we see people who are totally artificial,” he says.

Apart from the impact that AI models could have on a consumer or consumer, especially if they are not marked, what is the impact of this technology on those who work on the fashion industry?

Sara Ziff is an old model and founder of Model Alliance, an organization whose objective is to promote the rights of workers in the fashion industry.

In his opinion, the Guess artificial intelligence campaign has “less than to do with innovation and more with despair and the need to reduce costs.”

In more general terms, the exmodel believes that AI in the fashion industry is not intrinsically exploiting, but it can often occur at the expense of people who give it life, because in a photo shoot it intervenes much more personal than the model and the photographer.

“AI can have a positive impact on the sector, but it is necessary for workers to have significant protection,” he explains.

Seraphinne Vallera rejects the idea that he is leaving people without work and affirms that his pioneering technology “is complementary and does not intend to replace the models.”

“We offer companies another option to market a product,” says Petrescu.

The members add that they have created jobs with their company, and part of the process of creating AI models require that they hire a real model and a photographer to see how the product looks in a person in real life.

However, on its website it is indicated that one of the advantages of working with them is their profitability, since “eliminates the need for expensive assemblies, makeup artists, rental of premises, scenery, photographers, travel expenses and hiring of models.”

Vogue has been criticized for including the announcement in its print edition, and a person in X said that the fashion magazine had “lost credibility.”

Bovell states that the magazine is “considered the Supreme Court of the Fashion Industry”, so allowing the announcement made to be published with AI means that “somehow they consider it acceptable.”

The BBC contacted Vogue and Guess to obtain its version. Vogue said it was an ad, not an editorial decision, but refused to answer more questions. Guess did not respond.

What is the future of the modeling industry?

González and Petrescu believe that, as their technology improves, they will be even more requested by the brands that want to do things differently.

Bovell believes that in the future there will be more models generated by AI, but “we do not address a future in which all models will be created by AI.”

The exmodel sees positive aspects in the development of AI in the sector and predicts that anyone could “begin to be seen as fashion models”, because we can create an Aye's personal avatar to see how the clothes look.

However, he adds that we can get to the point that “society is disregarded and is not interested in AI models because they are unattainable and we know that they are not real.”

This article was written and edited by our journalists with the help of an artificial intelligence tool for translation, as part of a pilot program.

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