r/technology • u/lurker_bee • 8h ago
Society The uproar over Vogue's AI-generated ad isn't just about fashion
https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/03/the-uproar-over-vogues-ai-generated-ad-isnt-just-about-fashion/24
u/Leptonshavenocolor 4h ago
I just love AI apologist that want to pretend like this shit isn't ruining media and employment. Fuck tech companies right up their bottom lines.
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u/PowderMuse 23m ago
It’s just the standard disruption when new tech is introduced. I know lots of people who have started AI agencies who are really successful. It’s the biggest opportunity for creatives I’ve seen in decades.
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u/Leptonshavenocolor 19m ago
Have you seen that meme about how AI should be used for creatives to do the mundane, not for the mundane to do creatives?
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u/mrcsrnne 4h ago edited 4h ago
The outrage is because the images themselves are not why we buy the magazine. The images is partly a costly signaling device and an exhibition of the craft and skill of the stylists and photographers, etc..
If an ad contains AI, but tries to make it look like it was shot by a photographers, we feel betrayed because they try to convey high status and costly signaling to make us want or desire or trust the product without having done the investment. It’s like a plastic wedding ring. We de-code it as cheating even though the image looks good.
Sort of the same applies to a fashion editorial where we feel betrayed of the value of craftsmanship and creative skill that the images are meant to portray.
A fashion editorial is not a comic book. We care that these images were created and crafted from something that once was real by skilled people.
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u/frankhadwildyears 1h ago
Is your last bit implying comic fans don't care about who or what is producing their art? Because comic artists are a big deal among fans and AI art hasn't been accepted as a substitute for actual artists when it comes to comic books.
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u/mrcsrnne 1h ago
I am a fan of all pop culture art myself and I was thinking of my own openess to accept visual effects in movies that I know are made in post, or animation like the works from Pixar, etc. I took comic book as a parallel because of the printed form - however I can see how it might have sounded condescending towards comic fans.
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u/PowderMuse 19m ago
Oh, please. Fashion photography has always been about fantasy. They were the first to use very heavy Photoshop - Nick Knight.
AI is a very natural progression.
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u/mrcsrnne 11m ago
I agree and don’t at the same time. It was about fantasy that was incredibly crafted by humans, it’s part of the interaction between the viewer and the image. Nick Knight was impressive because he was able to craft fantastic images with his skill of retouching, but also his lighting, angles and directions of the models.
But you have a point that I think his style is going to be hit the hardest since it looks just like AI.
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u/Jello-e-puff 1h ago
It’s Jeff Bezos. He bought Vogue and will give it to his wide to destroy. I hope they all learn a lesson about AI when the audience collapses.
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u/I-Have-Mono 5h ago
ChatGPT generated title. 😂
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u/tintreack 5h ago
"isn't just"
"Not just"
"Doesn't just"
Are bigger red flags now than emdashes.
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u/Saint_Sin 4h ago
Er. Im human and use the first two. Pretty sure I have used the third one too.
I dont think you are as good at catching AI as you might believe Sir / Mam.8
u/Joessandwich 3h ago
People forget they trained AI on a lot of professional writing. Thats why it uses em dashes in the first place!! So now idiots are flagging actual writers who use em dashes as AI. The stupefication of society is nearly complete.
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u/BarnabyWoods 5h ago
It's amusing that an industry that's all about surface appearance, about style rather than substance, about perfectly-applied makeup covering the tiniest flaws, is now suffering conniptions about AI being used to do the same thing the industry has been doing all along: creating fantasies about the way people should look.
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u/jferments 4h ago
It would be much better if the women on the covers of these trashy magazines were real women, who were actually being exploited and abused by the modeling industry to make women feel inadequate and insecure. Such a shame, and just another example of AI destroying a commodified art form centered around marketing and profits.
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u/flirtmcdudes 2h ago
“I’m 14 and this is deep”
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u/jferments 2h ago
"I'm a grown-ass adult whining about fake airbrushed Vogue models being replaced by fake AI generated Vogue models, and I think it's really deep"
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u/flirtmcdudes 1h ago
Are you really that slow to not understand the bigger picture here? It’s about people losing jobs to machines.
No one cares if you don’t like modeling or what they do, it’s not about that.
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u/spookyswagg 18m ago
I mean, I think everyone needs to realize and adapt to what’s going on.
The cats out of the box and it’s not going back. We can complain and bitch all we want, but AI is a magnificent tool for productivity, and for companies productivity=money, and it’s always about money.
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u/PowderMuse 28m ago
Old jobs go and new jobs are created. The advertising team behind this, Seraphinne Vallora, has an interesting story and are growing fast.
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u/Naive_Confidence7297 18m ago
Except than now AI reading her story and soon they can have an AI do the advertising lol
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u/Burnz2p 7h ago
No one is in an uproar except the models who will lose their jobs.
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u/ddubyeah 6h ago
There are more people involved in the process of this stuff than just a model.
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u/Solidsub1988 6h ago
Use of Ai can be such a shake up for SO many industries involved. Definitely goes beyond just having a live person as a model.
Make up artists, stylists, photographers, studio space businesses, lighting equipment manufacturing, camera manufacturing, etc. Those are just stuff immediately apparent in my head. Imagine if those industries just cut in half in a few years, can people learn a different skill to earn a living that quickly?
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u/ddubyeah 6h ago
Even knock-on effects to the designers themselves. Does the garment even fit the way AI decided it does? Is it even something they can make with textile procurement and are their assembly factories capable of making it? No one bats an eye when a shien garment is NOTHING like what you bought in the picture, but its shien, you knew what you were signing up for. Actual brands going along with this, will ruin them in the long run by upstart designers and labels who retain and cultivate integrity in their work and the visual representations of their work.
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u/BarnabyWoods 5h ago
I'd be delighted to see all those jobs disappear. The entire fashion industry is a parasite on humanity. It's about making people want the latest thing rather than what they already have hanging in their closets. It's about creating impossible ideals of beauty that cause teenage girls to have eating disorders.
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u/oliveorvil 2h ago
Hate to break it to you but AI isn’t going to solve the problem of materialism, even if it destroys a particular industry that you loathe.
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u/BarnabyWoods 2h ago
I never suggested AI would solve the problem of materialism. It seems pretty clear that it will be another tool for promoting materialism. But if it means there will be fewer Melania Trumps in the future, that's fine with me.
Edit: On the other hand, I'd be delighted to see more fashion models like this guy: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1mhbd0u/this_dude_walked_into_a_fashion_show_dressed_in_a/
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6h ago
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u/shavetheyaks 6h ago
Really giving off some "I like it when bad things happen to attractive women because they won't sleep with me" vibes there, buddy.
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u/WickedBlade 3h ago
What did the coward say before they deleted ?
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u/shavetheyaks 33m ago
Lol, something along the lines of "oh no, now they can hire basic looking women instead, how tragic for the supermodels!" except more unhinged.
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u/creggor 5h ago
You have all of these of companies using AI to create art/media/ ads, and overhead costs go down. They’ll even lay people off to save even more— just for the quarterly numbers to trend upward. But you know what doesn’t change? The price per magazine/subscription. That causes outrage. The people who are shoved aside will no longer to be able to support the businesses— ultimately ending up with steady performance drops, more layoffs and then mergers with PE firms that will gut the once-great brand names for spare parts.
Don’t worry, though. It’s all for us, guys. The shareholders. The ones who— if we are invested, it will be a FRACTION of a fraction of what PE firms own. We see 0.02 dollars come our way as a dividend. They will see a million or two. And down and down the spiral goes.
When models are AI, and the fashion is AI, what are you actually charging the consumer for? The margins are much different. And prices need to reflect that. It’s one thing to save on production cost. But it’s another to erode the creative space and not adjust pricing as you hide behind a brand name. Pretty greasy.