A woman from New York, United States has found a comedic use for artificial intelligence to allegedly make her exes jealous. Madeline Salazar uses AI to modify her solo pictures to make them look like a man accompanies her. "My ex moved on so I had to soft launch a boyfriend. Fast," Salazar posted on her Instagram, with a montage of edits she made to morph her photos. She allegedly posts the photos on her Instagram story for her ex to believe that she has found someone new.
Salazar is an artist and AI expert, according to her Instagram bio. She has two Instagram handles, an art page and an account to share her AI edits. She posts more videos similar to the "new boyfriend" one, clarifying that they are just a joke. In one of her videos, she claimed to have found a man to fix her shower because her boyfriend wasn't answering the phone.
Madeline Salazar's AI Boyfriends
The 29-year-old artist is talented in using artificial intelligence to make images that look horrifyingly close to real. In one of the clips in her "new boyfriend" video, she edited a man holding her hand as he walked in front of her, which her followers were most surprised by. In another, she placed an AI-generated manly hand on the photo of her lap.
"Getting good hands is almost impossible," one Instagram user commented. According to AI experts, a computer-generated image can be identified by looking at the hands of the figure, which they say is often difficult for AI to get right. They say AI-generated images tend to have missing or additional fingers or disproportionate hands. However, in Salazar's case, the hand looked close to perfect.
Salazar uses prompts like "man resting on the shoulder" or "back of man's head" to get a collection of multiple AI-generated options. In an interview with Newsweek Salazar said, "I started a TikTok series using generative AI to create ridiculous and comical scenarios. I'd categorized my videos into three distinct buckets: pranks, absurdity and what I call toxic dating narratives."
She said, "I brainstorm the most devious ways a woman can manipulate a man, and then I slap some humour on it using AI. People love these TikToks because in them I'm living out the kinds of schemes they fantasize about, and I make it funny." Salazar shared that each edit takes her about two and a half hours, which she fast-forwards to make a cheeky TikTok video or Instagram reel.
Several people miss the joke and call Salazar "toxic" or a "red flag". Some others say her ex-boyfriend "dodged a bullet," but Salazar said that she finds these comments hilarious. "This was more to be consumed as comedy, but not everybody understands my humour," she told Newsweek.
As AI is being used to nefariously manipulate photos for all the wrong reasons, Salazar's motive comes as a refreshing take. Moreover, her incredible attention to detail in using AI creatively as well as showing that the growing technology is not all bad, deserves appreciation.