Scott Disick, Brody Jenner promoted racist AI app, slammed
Celebrities Scott Disick, Brody Jenner, and Danielle Cohn are being slammed on the internet for promoting Gradient, an application that packs an outright racist feature. The trio used it to "change their ethnicity in images" and look like people from other parts of the world, which made their fans incredibly angry. Here is all you need to know about it.
What exactly is Gradient?
Available on Android and iOS, Gradient is a photo-editing app that offers AI-powered filters, textures, and presets to enhance photos. The company has been using its photo-editing AI for some fun features like which celebrity you look like. But, just recently, it launched capabilities targeting races of people, including one that altered ethnicity in images by morphing skin colors and facial features.
Celebrities promoted this AI Face filter
The race-altering feature, dubbed AI Face, was promoted by Scott Disick, Brody Jenner, and Danielle Cohn. Scott shared an image that showed his face adjusted by Gradient's filters of "Europe," "Asia," and "India", while Brody shared his photo adjusted by "Africa," "Asia" and "India" filters. Cohn also made herself look Black using the controversial app.
Evidently, fans were not happy
As the photos were shared, fans took to social media platforms to denounce the promotion of "digital blackface," and slamming the celebrities as racist. Many said that neither people's races and cultures should be reduced to filters nor it is appropriate to ask which one looks better - which Scott did in the now-deleted tweet. Brody's tweet has also been removed.
Ethnicity Estimate, animal lookalike also among features
Among other things, the app also uses its artificial intelligence technology to give an 'ethnicity estimate,' where it analyzes a person's photo to calculate their DNA ancestry. It also shows which animal one looks similar to and transforms images into ancient portraits.
Scott had promoted Gradient before too
The celebrities' representatives have not commented on the matter thus far. Meanwhile, Scott had promoted Gradient last year as well, when the app's celebrity lookalike feature was going viral with several celebrity shoutouts, including those from Jimmy Kimmel, Diplo, and the Kardashians. Notably, the app had also drawn flak over its privacy policy for user photos and for charging without explicit user consent.
