Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of the encrypted messaging service Telegram, made headlines earlier this year when he said Telegram had hit 900 million users and was nearing profitability.
Now, Durov, 39, is in the news for a different reason. On Sunday, Aug. 25, French media reported that Durov had been arrested at the Paris Le Bourget airport on Aug. 24. According to French Media, investigators from the National Anti-Fraud Office, attached to the French customs department, notified Durov that he was being placed in police custody, the arrest was reportedly based on charges related to the spread of illicit material on Telegram.
On Aug. 28, French authorities handed Durov preliminary charges for failing to prevent illicit activity on the app. Per the Associated Press, the first preliminary charge against Durov was for “complicity in managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organized group.”A crime such as that can reportedly lead to prison sentences of up to 10 years. In a statement, the Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, said that Durov had been released from custody on a $5.5 million bail, but he must stay in the country.
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“Telegram abides by E.U. laws, including the Digital Services Act—its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving. Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe,” Telegram wrote in a statement emailed to TIME on Aug. 25. “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”
The Paris Prosecutor’s Office and France’s Ministry of Justice did not respond to TIME’s request for comment.
Durov has been a mogul in the app-creating industry for years. In a rare interview withU.S. conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson in April 2024, Durov discussed how important free speech is to him, and why he created Telegram.
“For me, it was never about getting rich. For me, everything in my life was about becoming free,” Durov told Carlson during their sit-down in Dubai. “And to the extent that it was possible, my mission in life was to allow others to also be free. And using the platforms that we created, my hope was that they could express their freedom.”
With public interest in Durov arguably at an all-time high, here’s what to know about the business mogul.
Pavel Durov co-founded the encrypted messaging service Telegram and the social media platform VK
Durov has been referred to as the “Mark Zuckerberg of Russia,” according to CNN, after co-founding the social media platform VKontakte (VK) in his native country in 2006.
In 2014, Durov said he had been fired from VK. Meanwhile, VK stated that they were acting on a previous resignation letter from Durov that had not been rescinded.
Durov fled Russia in 2014, selling his stake in VK, after reportedly refusing to cooperate with Russian authorities and provide encrypted data of users of the app.
“It was a bit painful because my first company was my baby,” Durov told Carlson in his 2024 interview. “But at the same time, I understood that I would rather be free. I wouldn’t want to take orders from anyone.”
In 2013, Durov founded Telegram with his brother, Nikolai Durov, which has only grown in popularity since. Per Telegram, the messaging app has “a focus on speed and security. Telegram is like SMS and email combined—and can take care of all your personal or business messaging needs.”
During his exile, Durov focused intensely on the growth of Telegram. “I’m very happy right now without any property anywhere,” Durov told the New York Times in 2014. “I consider myself a legal citizen of the world.”
Telegram was banned in Russia from 2018 to 2020 after Telegram refused to give Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) encryption keys granting access to user messaging data.
What has been the public reaction to Pavel Durov’s detainment in Paris?
Many public figures have publicly commented on Durov’s detainment in Paris.
Elon Musk wrote the hashtag #FreePavel on X (formerly Twitter) alongside a clip of Durov’s interview with Carlson. Former independent presidential candidate RFK Jr. also posted on X, writing that “the need to protect free speech has never been more urgent.”
Edward Snowden, a former U.S. intelligence contractor who in 2013 leaked classified information belonging to the National Security Agency (NSA) and others, said that Durov’s arrest was “an assault on the basic human rights of speech and association” and alleged that French President Emmanuel Macron was “taking hostages as a means for gaining access to private communications.”
On Monday, Aug. 26, Macron wrote on X that France is “deeply committed to freedom of expression,” but that those freedoms are “upheld within a legal framework, both on social media and in real life.” He added: “The arrest of the president of Telegram on French soil took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation. It is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to rule on the matter.”
Meanwhile, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Durov resides in Dubai) also released a statement, saying that they are “closely following” Durov’s case and that they have “submitted a request to the French government to provide him with all consular services urgently.”
What is Pavel Durov’s nationality?
Durov was born in 1984 in the then-Soviet Union. When he was 4 years old, his family moved to Italy, though he returned to Russia after his father received a job at St Petersburg University, where he himself eventually attended for education.
According toForbes, as of Aug. 25, Durov’s net worth is estimated to be $15.5 billion. Durov is currently listed number 120 on Forbes’ billionaire list.
Durov is unmarried, but reportedly has five children that he shares with his ex-girlfriends, according to his Forbes profile. On July 29, Durov said in a post on Telegram that he has over “100 biological kids” via sperm donation.
In the aftermath of the major security breach confirmed by National Public Data (NPD) on Friday, many may have to safeguard their sensitive information, like their social security number, to prevent identity theft. One of the best ways to do this is through a credit freeze, which limits access to your credit reports.
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In a statement, NPD warned that the “the information that was suspected of being breached contained name, email address, phone number, social security number, and mailing address(es).”
It recommended the public take a number of steps to safeguard their information, including freezing their credit, which NPD said “means potential creditors cannot get your credit report.” It also means bad actors cannot take out loans or open credit cards, since the freeze locks the data at the consumer reporting agency until the individual gives permission for the release of said data.
There are other alternatives to a credit freeze, including a credit lock and a fraud alert, but a credit freeze is the most effective.
The best way to go about freezing your credit is creating an account with the three big credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. These agencies are also recommended by the U.S. government. A request must be made separately to each, though the service is free.
Once an account is created with a username and password, users can simply click a button and freeze their credit. This request can also be submitted by mail or phone with each agency. Typically, the freeze will take place within one business day if requested over the phone or online, and within three business days if requested by mail.
With these agencies, parents also have the ability to freeze their children’s credit reports, if necessary. Experian has a Child Identity Theft Protection scheme, through which parents can check if their child has an Experian credit report and add a fraud alert to the report or freeze it.
According to Experian, it’s important to remember that a credit freeze does not fully block access to credit reports, it only limits them. So, credit bureaus can still share credit reports when requested for “non-lending purposes,” including insurance companies, landlords, employers, and government agencies.
Under a freeze, if a legitimate lending party needs to run your credit, they should contact you directly from the organization, and then the freeze can be lifted.
Billions of personal information records may have been exposed in April after a hacking group gained access to records from the background check service National Public Data (NPD), prompting warnings from cybersecurity experts. NPD confirmed this week that a security incident within their company resulted in a leak of personal information, including social security numbers for millions of people.
In their statement on Friday, NPD warned that the “the information that was suspected of being breached contained name, email address, phone number, social security number, and mailing address(es).” It recommended the public to take a number of steps to safeguard their identities, including freezing their credit and putting fraud alerts on their files at big credit bureaus.
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The breach came to public awareness after a class-action lawsuit was filed August 1 in U.S. District Court in Florida, which was first reported by Bloomberg Law.
National Public Data did not share how many people were at risk, but hackers, who have been identified as part of the hacking group USDoD, have been offering, for sale, what they claimed were billions of NPD records since April, though the Washington Post reported that “security researchers who looked at the trove said some of the claims were exaggerated.”
According to David Brumley, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, these breaches will become more popular with centralization of data.
“We are not talking about a startup here,” Brumley said. “Looking forward, we have to have higher standards for the custodians of our data.”
Here is how you can check if your social security has been compromised by the breach and what to do to protect your information.
How to check if your social security information has been compromised
NPD has not notified specific people whose data has been compromised. In their statement, they say they are working with law enforcement to review affected records and “will try to notify you if there are further significant developments applicable to you.”
Cybersecurity firm Pentester compiled a free database after the breach with the information in it—redacting social security numbers and dates of birth– and created a search tool for people to see if their information was involved. People can enter their name, state, and year of birth here, and the search will instantly look for information in the billions of records leaked online in the massive data breach.
What to do if you’re affected by the leak
If your social security number was breached, the best thing to do is to freeze your credit files through creating an account with one of the three consumer credit reporting agencies: Equifax, Experian or TransUnion. This can prevent identity theft. Credit reporting agencies also have services for those who set up accounts to check if their social security numbers have been compromised.
Even if your social security number was not leaked, Brumley says there are protections that should become the norm in this era of data breaches.
He urges people to set up two-factor authentication on as many online accounts as possible, or use an authentication app to secure your online accounts. He also advises to set up account alerts with your bank, including any and all charges outside of your home country and ATM withdrawals.
Brumley says his major piece of advice is to “be vigilant.”
Vigilance, he says, includes checking your credit score constantly, especially before large purchases like car loans and mortgages. It also includes awareness of phishing scams, since Brumley says leaks of this size open up the space for scammers to pose as banks and those trying to help.
He also says people should be double checking with their banks, even if they have alert services on for large purchases and withdrawals. He says that even though some banks have regulations where they require extra identification, people can now engineer ways to fool these checks. He adds that it’s up to each individual to keep a watchful eye on their credit, their identity, and their bank information.
“There’s not much more you can do when this much data has been compromised,” Brumley adds.
WhatsApp, the instant messaging application owned by Meta, released an update this week, introducing animated stickers from GIPHY, the popular GIF platform.
In a blog post, Meta wrote that the “integration lets you find and share relevant and engaging stickers, without having to leave the app.” WhatsApp, which recently hit 100 million users in the United States, says that users can access the new GIPHY features by updating the app in theApp store.
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Before the update, U.S.-based WhatsApp users were among those who could stay within the app to send GIFs from GIPHY—which was previously owned by Meta— but now they will be able to expand their use to animated stickers. Users will be able to search for different stickers using keywords or emojis.
The update goes even further for Android users, expanding access to a “custom sticker maker” of which iOS users have already had access to for some time. With the sticker maker, WhatsApp users can create personalized stickers using photographs in their camera roll, or they can edit existing stickers using the cut, draw, and crop tools.
Meta also shared on its blog that if, after searching, users do not find the GIF they want, they can utilize Meta AI to create more custom stickers. All of a user’s stickers can be organized through customizable dashboards called a “sticker tray.”
This AI sticker feature is currently available to iPhone and Android users in the United States.
The Microsoft IT Outage that impacted services worldwide on Friday was caused by a software update by third-party cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike.
According to Microsoft, the outage—which continues to cause disruption—affected 8.5 million Windows devices. Though they note that this is less than one percent of all Windows machines, the outage crashed systems worldwide, with online banking portals and air travel among the services impacted.
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The outage was not caused by a cyberattack, but concern has since grown from both CrowdStrike and government-affiliated agencies as to how scammers are capitalizing on the outage and the resulting confusion surrounding malicious cyber activity.
According to CrowdStrike’s blog, a “likely eCrime actor is using file names capitalizing on July 19, 2024,” specifically utilizing a malicious ZIP archive named “crowdstrike-hotfix.zip” to take data from customers.
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Here is how you can protect yourself from scammers as disruptions from the outage continue to unfold.
Be alert
You’ve already begun this first step. Be aware of phishing scams that have cropped up to capitalize on the CrowdStrike outage and do not download zip-files or software from unknown sources claiming to help with the outage.
When receiving requests for personal information by unknown numbers, be aware, and never share sensitive information to unverified sources.
The U.K’s National Cyber Security Centre has a robust guidance sheet for how organizations and businesses can protect their employees from phishing. This guidance includes four layers of mitigation tactics, from employing anti-spoofing controls to ensuring employees are aware of what phishing looks like and the tactics used to trick users into handing over information or making unauthorized payments.
Go straight to official websites
David Brumley, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, tells TIME he has seen a few different kinds of scam tactics over the weekend. The most prominent of these include malicious actors pretending to be CrowdStrike, offering to help businesses after the outage. He’s also noticed scammers pretending to be airlines and other organizations, again pretending to offer help to those impacted. The best course of action, Brumley notes, is always to contact business representatives directly.
“If you get a text that purports to be from one of [these businesses] and you feel uncomfortable, always just call them directly,” Brumley says.
Be sure to contact these companies via their official pages and help desks, rather than by responding to texts or emails claiming to be sent from the companies or affiliated parties.
Don’t rush
According to Catriona Lowe, deputy chair of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, these scammers often create “a sense of urgency that you need to do what they say to protect your computer and your financial information.”
The best way to combat this is to slow down and ensure that you are not giving out personal details over text and email, especially to unverified sources.
Report the scam
Different countries have designated websites where you can report scams. In Australia, people can head to Scamwatch for further help. In the U.K., those impacted or concerned can send an email to report@phishing.gov.uk. Meanwhile, in the U.S., people can report instances of fraud via the Federal Trade Commission.
Check in with vulnerable friends and family members
According to the U.S. National Institute of Aging, older adults—defined generally as those above the age of 65—are often the target of scams. When possible, check in with older friends and family to ensure that they have the above tools and are aware of the rise in phishing scams as a result of the outage.
Clare O’Neil, Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Cyber Security, has also pointed out the need to protect those most vulnerable to falling victim to scams. In a series of posts shared on X (formerly Twitter) she said: “It is very important that Australians are extremely cautious of any unexpected texts, calls or emails claiming to be assistance with this issue.” She continued by specifying that people can help by “making sure vulnerable people, including elderly relatives, are being extra cautious at this time.”
The major Microsoft IT outage on Friday that grounded flights, sent TV stations off air, and disrupted online hospital systems has been linked to a third party—a cybersecurity technology firm named CrowdStrike.
Early Friday, companies in Australia running Microsoft’s Windows operating system started reporting devices showing, what is commonly referred to as, “blue screens of death.” According to Microsoft’s website, this happens “if a serious problem causes Windows to shut down or restart unexpectedly.”
These disruptions then spread rapidly, impacting companies and communities around the world. The U.K., India, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.S., reported disruptions. Meanwhile, United, Delta, and American Airlines issued a “global ground stop” on all flights.
The cause of this outage came from a faulty update from CrowdStrike, deployed to computers running Microsoft Windows. The issue was specifically linked to Falcon, one of the companies main products, which does not impact Mac or Linux operating systems.
Launched in 2012 CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity software is now used by 298 of Fortune 500 companies, including banks, energy companies, healthcare companies, and food companies.
According to David Brumley, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, this was a perfect storm of issues. “Their code is buggy, and it was sitting there as a ticking time bomb,” Brumley says.
He says there are three steps cybersecurity teams should typically implement when rolling out an update. First, there should have been rigorous software testing to catch bugs; second, there should have been testing on different types of machines; and third, the roll out should have been slow with smaller sets of users to screen for negative ramifications.
“Companies like Google will roll out updates incrementally so if the update is bad, at least it will have limited damage,” says Brumley, adding that the issue may only get more pronounced.
“What we’re seeing and what we’ll continue to see is a huge consolidation in the cybersecurity department, and that’s why we’re seeing so many people affected at once,” says Brumley. “We need to be asking, ‘What choices can we give people if companies mess up?’”
How has CrowdStrike responded to the outage felt worldwide?
Appearing via a video link on The Today Show on Friday, CrowdStrike’s CEO delivered an apology to the public:
“We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this, including our companies,” Kurtz said. “That update had a software bug in it and caused an issue with the Microsoft operating system…we identified this very quickly and remediated the issue.”
Kurtz was clear that this was not a cybersecurity issue nor an attack of any kind, but an issue coming from inside the company.
Though they’ve deployed the changes necessary to help remedy the issue, customers are still having issues, and it may be some time before systems across the globe are all fully operational.
In a statement emailed to TIME, CrowdStrike said that they are “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”
They also clarified, once more, for those concerned that the issue is not a security incident, and that the problem has been “identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed.”
Kurtz has also shared this information on his personal X (formerly Twitter) account.
CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We…
According to Forbes, Kurtz’s net worth had dropped $300 million as of Friday afternoon—from $3.2 billion to $2.9 billion–amid fallout from the IT outage.The CEO’s wealth is enmeshed with CrowdStrike shares, which dropped drastically following the incident.
On The Today Showsegment, Kurtz said that CrowdStrike has been on the phone with customers all night, and that the issue was resolved for many when they rebooted their systems.However, he says the company will not “relent until we get every customer back to where they were and keep the bad guys out of their systems.”
On Thursday night, Microsoft 365 posted on X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”
In the blog post, Weston said that Microsoft estimates “CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines.” Still, he goes on to say that the outage “demonstrates the interconnected nature of our broad ecosystem—global cloud providers, software platforms, security vendors and other software vendors, and customers.”
Weston also stated that Microsoft is “working around the clock” to help customers. He referenced the steps they are taking with CrowdStrike to mediate the effects of the outage, the company’s own post demonstrating manual fixes of the issue. Customers can also track the status of the incident through the “Azure Status Dashboard.”
TIME has reached out to Microsoft 365 for further comment.
On Friday, AT&T announced that the data of nearly all of their over 100 million customers was downloaded to a third-party platform in a security breach dating back to 2022. The affected parties include AT&T’s cellular customers, customers of mobile virtual network operators using AT&T’s wireless network, and other phone numbers that an AT&T wireless number interacted with during this time, including AT&T landline customers.
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A company investigation determined that compromised data includes files containing AT&T records of calls and texts between May 1, 2022 and Oct. 31, 2022, as well as on Jan. 2, 2023. But they confirmed that the breach did not include the content of any said calls or texts, nor the timestamps. It also doesn’t have any details such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, or other personally identifiable information.
The company has shared advice to customers on what the breach means for their data safety and how to protect themselves.
Luckily, AT&T does not believe that the data is publicly available, yet does not know what exactly is being done with it.
“We have confirmed that the affected third-party cloud-based workspace has been secured,” AT&T spokesperson Alex Byers told TIME in an emailed statement. “We sincerely regret this incident occurred and remain committed to protecting the information in our care.”
AT&T says it is contacting the customers whose data was compromised by the data breach. Customers can also check the status of their myAT&T, FirstNet, and business AT&T accounts to see if their data was affected through their account profile.
Until December 2024, those impacted by the data breach will be able to receive the phone numbers of the calls and texts compromised by the data breach. Current customers can request this data through their AT&T profile. Active AT&T wireless and home phone customers can get help here, while AT&T Prepaid customers can submit a data request.
Prior customers who were with AT&T during the affected time frame can access their breached data through a data request. If customers cannot provide their case number, they can still submit a legal demand subpoena to their registered agent, CT Corp, for handling and processing, according to AT&T.
AT&T’s website also recommends customers protect themselves from phishing and scamming through multiple avenues, including only opening text messages from people that customers know, never replying to a text from an unknown sender with personal details, going directly to a company’s website, and looking for the “s” after the http in the address of a website to ensure its security.
The telecommunications giant also recommended that customers forward suspicious text activity AT&T—a free service that does not count towards any text plan—and report fraud to AT&T’s fraud team.
The beauty pageant industry isn’t what it used to be. Miss Universe, which has been around since 1952, has suffered a dramatic ratings decline in the last five years. In May, the reigning Miss USA and Miss Teen USA gave back their crowns, sparking fresh controversy in the community.
Yet, a new kind of beauty pageant has emerged. This pageant is similar in many ways to the traditional experience, except for one important detail: the women are not real.
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The World AI Creators Awards (WAICAS) has gathered 10 finalists in their quest to find “Miss AI,” the winner of a beauty pageant for women generated by artificial intelligence (AI). The finalists, chosen from 1,500 participants, come from teams of creators around the world. The creators utilize programs such as Open AI’s DALL·E 3, Midjourney or Stable Diffusion to generate images of the women from different text prompts.
These AI-generated women still follow stereotypical beauty standards, with thin bodies and young faces. Open AI has previously acknowledged that it finds “DALL-E 3 defaults to generating images of people that match stereotypical and conventional ideals of beauty.” Computer vision experts and the Algorithmic Justice League have also uncovered racial bias in facial analysis technology.
In an email to TIME, the WAICAS team addressed the concerns around perpetuating traditional beauty standards, saying they want to focus on “celebrating diversity and realism.”
“This isn’t about pushing unrealistic standards, but realistic creators that represent real people,” they say. “Traditional pageantry took decades to evolve and be more representative—whilst AI can do this in fast forward which is really exciting.
These contestants will be judged based on three criteria: beauty, tech, and clout. Clout can come in a number of ways, but most of the AI-generated women are online influencers.
The World AI Creator Awards (WAICA) Instagram page features 10 posts, introducing each of the AI-generated women to audiences. One contestant, Kenza Layli, is said to be “contributing to the empowerment of women in Morocco and the Middle East,” with her almost 200,000 followers. Another, Olivia C of Portugal, is introduced as a “traveler,” showcasing how technology can “enhance the human experience, not replace it.” Meanwhile, fellow AI-generated avatar Aiyana Rainbow’s profile includes iconography of the queer community, adorned with rainbows in many posts, and is an “embodiment of inclusivity and LGBTQIA+ acceptance.”
It can be easy to forget that these women are not real, as each has a detailed personality that’s described on their Instagram page. But everything has been AI-generated, from their interests and hobbies, to the sweep of their hair and the beaches they are laying on.
The contest will be judged, in part, by two humans: Andrew Bloch, a media advisor, and Sally-Ann Fawcett, beauty pageant historian and author. They will be joined by two AI-generated influencers, Aitana Lopez and Emily Pellegrini, to judge the artistry of each meticulously-curated AI contestant.
Per the pageant’s website, the winner will receive items including a $5,000 cash prize and public relations support worth over $5,000.
The winner will be announced on Monday, July 8, via an announcement video on the World AI Creator Awards social channels.
A judge’s view on the Miss AI contest and the concept of AI-generated women
Amongst the judges, Fawcett is providing a real-world touch as an experienced beauty pageant judge in the U.K. for the past ten years.
Speaking to TIME over the phone, Fawcett admits she was originally skeptical when Fanvue—an AI-powered subscription-service designed to help creators manage and grow their online presence—approached her to judge the contest. She’d had no prior experience with artificial intelligence and was wary of the public opinion toward AI women. However, Fawcett believes AI-generated influencers are here to stay and thinks that the winner of the Miss AI pageant could help foster positive representation amongst AI influencers.
“I thought by choosing a role model, an ambassador for the AI world, who is slightly more realistic and presenting a powerful inspirational message to their thousands of followers, there could be a slight change,” Fawcett tells TIME.“Change has to start from within.”
Fawcett has witnessed first-hand how beauty pageants have changed since she fell in love with them in the 1970s, and is hoping for the same shift in AI. This is just the first iteration of AI beauty pageants, according to Fawcett.
“In the 70s, the majority of pageants were run and judged by men, and these days, I would say 95% in this country are run by women and judged by women,” Fawcett estimates. “AI is seen very much as a male preserve, and we want to try and change that stereotype.”
Fawcett says that the competition isn’t looking to reward a woman solely based on stereotypes. She emphasizes that with thousands of followers, these AI influencers and, in turn, their creators have a responsibility to share important messages.
Rather than “beauty pageant,” Fawcett thinks something closer to “a celebration of women” may be a better way to describe her hopes for pageantry. Fawcett believes that in the future, the competitions should have more diversity and even a competition including men.
“[Contestants] have created—not all of them, but most—what they think is a really, really beautiful woman. And I think perhaps they need educating as well in that it’s all very well to be beautiful, but there needs to be more substance,” Fawcett says. “There needs to be somebody realistic and not this stereotype of an AI woman.”
Meet the creator behind one of the AI-generated avatars judging the contest
Sofia Novales, Project Manager at The Clueless Aigency, is one of the people responsible for creating Aitana Lopez, an AI judge for the Miss AI pageant and an influencer in her own right with over 300,000 followers on Instagram.
Aitana, one of the first AI influencers of her kind, has been given the age of 25. Her signature pink hair and detailed personality is something that Novales says the team spent two months configuring.
Aitana’s team at Clueless wanted to get involved in Fanvue’s competition to award the creativity that they helped inspire through the rise in AI-generated influencers—the art, the technology, and the originality, Novales tells TIME.
Novales comments upon a leading narrative surrounding AI-generated women—that the creators are men who are just creating their dream girl. She acknowledges that this mentality does exist in the industry, but she herself works with five other women on Aitana.
Like Fawcett, Novales is aware of the sexualization of AI-generated women and the lack of diversity in the space, and says Clueless is trying to address this within their own AI avatars.
“This is why we are creating 15 stock models of 15 women and 15 men, from totally different cultures and sizes,” Novales says. “You don’t have to just create women.”
There is definitely an economic incentive to Clueless’s work with Aitana. While Novales says that the team did not make money initially with their AI creation, the virtual model can earn up to €10,000 ($10,840) a month, but the average is usually around €3,000 (3,252). Most of that comes from brand deals with clothing and jewelry companies. Just last week, Aitana was featured in New York City’s Time Square on an advertisement campaign for a hair company.
Beyond this, Novales says part of the impetus to create Aitana was to make it cheaper for smaller brands to utilize models—rather than hiring photographers and makeup artists, creating campaigns, and flying models around the globe, now brands can use AI-generated models for a fraction of the price.
She wants to quell fears though: this does not mean that AI will make real-life models obsolete.
“We believe that they will coexist; it’s just more competition in the market, a new type of service,” Novales says. “There will be agencies that will always want to be working with real people, but there will be others that want to innovate.”
What tech experts are saying about the world of AI-generated models
For Claire Leibowicz, Head of the AI and Media Integrity Program at The Partnership on AI (PAI), the Miss AI pageant represents a desire for the technical world to get everyday people used to AI-generated images with the help of something they already know they like—beautiful women.
She and her team have been prepared for the rise of generative AI and improvement in photorealism for the past few years, but were surprised by the “trendy-ness” of it, and the inclusion of influencer-culture.
Though she says she’s not thrilled with the use of a beauty pageant to get people engaging with tech, she sees it as rather innocuous to the other, more nefarious uses of generative AI such as troubling deepfakes, which are often used against women.
Beyond the context of the pageant, Leibowicz is most concerned with making sure that those who consume content by these AI-generated women know that they are not human. Undeniably, the technology is getting better, more interactive overall, and it’s harder to distinguish between people and AI systems.
To Leibowicz, Miss AI connotes our increasingly hybrid AI-human information environment, and that even these “seemingly creative endeavors” are a part of understanding how to gauge if content is real or not. Creators need tools to make sure consumers know what they are viewing, and consumers need tools to understand.
“If [the AI women] are selling lip gloss, it might not matter. But if they’re telling you how to vote, [then] one of these, you know, influencers may have a different civic value and require a different type of disclosure,” Leibowicz says. “So I think we need better transparency of who’s behind these things.”
Nikhil Suresh, machine learning consultant and Director at Hermit Technology, feels more strongly against the concept of “Miss AI” and AI influencers in general. Suresh sees people flocking towards AI with a strange fascination, and tech professionals just trying to have a hand in what they see as the “future” of tech.
Suresh tells TIME he was particularly affected by a quote in a recent NPR article about Miss AI, in which one of the avatar creators “says his AI avatar is cheaper, more flexible, and doesn’t talk back.”
“I just sit here like, ‘Great. A bunch of men who have created artificial women that don’t talk back,’” Suresh says, noting the “problematic” nature of such creations, including the upheld gender and racial stereotypes he saw when he looked through the top 10 contestants.
When discussing why AI influencers look as they do—generally, conventionally beautiful, thin, and with the racial bias referenced above, Suresh argues that, from his experience, these programs are simply pulling from data available to them. When a prompt is sent to these programs, the algorithm creates an answer and photo based on the masses of photos in the database, and with terms like “beautiful” in use, the results shown are what has traditionally been deemed “beautiful” and by what mass amounts of photos are available.
“So in a weird way, a lot of this bias is just a gross reflection of what was already going on in society previously,” Suresh says. “It’s not like an AI problem, AI just holds up a mirror to it.”
Leibowicz agrees, stating that it’s much easier for these algorithms to churn out the people that perpetuate certain beauty standards, and that while the perception is that creators are deciding these physical attributes, many decisions are being made at the technological model level.
She asks central questions, though, about the basis of the contest: “Why is society so fixated on beautiful things?” Beyond that: “What does it mean to have this opportunity to do a beauty pageant differently? Does AI help us do that? Or does AI exacerbate the issues already present in beauty pageants?”
For Leibowicz, just as much as Miss AI raises technical questions, it raises sociological ones about not just how we as humans relate to beauty, but how we relate to technology. She remembers last year, when an AI-generated image of Pope Francis wearing a Balenciaga puffer jacket went viral online, fooling many internet users, including Leibowicz herself. Miss AI is another step in this process of the human and AI enmeshing with one another, particularly on social media. To what extent it will go, she’s not entirely sure.
“On the one hand, let this be the only use for interactive and emotionally appealing AI; I’m happy it’s being used for pageantry and not to manipulate people,” Leibowicz says. “And at the same time, why perpetuate these existing parts of society that maybe bring out things we might want to move away from to a more equal and just society?”
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