DignifAI, an app that “dresses up” women online, is a hit with men

She had a boyish fur cut, hand in her shorts, and an open leather vest that revealed part of her bare chest. on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine, on February 14, Kristen Stewart appeared androgynous, provocative and hypersexualized. However, it has been two weeks since the same slightly revised image has been circulating on social networks. We see the actress Dusk fully dressed, in a long blue dress, shawl around neck and painted nails, hair straightened. The photo was obtained from a software called DignifAI using artificial intelligence. Its purpose is to “Restore dignity to the Internet”, we read on its page. account.

Kristen Stewart isn’t the only one targeted by this new technology. Thus, every photo of a woman posted on social networks, which AI considers vulgar – too naked, tattooed, “unworthy” – appears completely altered, covered from head to toe. Originally launched on the forum 4chan, a controversial site known for its sexist and regressive ideas, DignifAI is reportedly becoming a particularly popular tool for conservatives and other masculinists. As reported Set free this new phenomenon would thus allow retrograde users to “satisfy their reactionary fantasies of purer and more submissive women”.

“We clean them up”

However, according to the daily, a discussion was opened on this forum last January to launch the software, which is now unavailable. Its name is “Operation/TradAI”. His hashtag “#DignifAI”. To convince his community, its creator explained: “With the power of AI, we will wear instahots (naked girls on instagram, editor’s note), we will clean them of their tattoos, rid them of their piercings, and lengthen their skirts. » Mission successful as the account already has about 63,000 subscribers on X. Stars of the big screen, but also singers like Cardi B and other influencers and anonymous people, parade themselves as real “saleswomen”, these housewives in very “1950s” outfits.

“Sexual attraction depends on mystery and tension. “The more sex and sexuality are overt, demystified and normalized, the less exciting it is,” one user wrote under one post. One of the followers of the phenomenon is a certain Jack Posobek, who is a well-known extreme right-wing figure in the USA. On February 2, he retweeted the app’s post, followed by this scathing message:

Women in sight (again).

The use of this artificial intelligence poses problems for its substance, but also for its form. In addition to the values ​​he conveys, it is actually women in his sights, once again widening the disparities between the sexes. Because if this new artificial intelligence dresses them, then it is he who undresses them otherwise. In 2019, an app called DeepNude was created, this time replacing clothes with bare breasts and bare stomachs. Faced with its dazzling success, the Estonia-based software was shut down after just twenty-four hours. This is not the case with DignifAI, which seems to warn in its title. “We are creating a movement.” Or women’s bodies, once again objectified and judged.