AI’s Beauty Standard: Where Do You Fit?

Jan 14, 2025

When beauty is algorithm-made, who gets left behind?

Death by a Thousand Cuts: Fighting Against the Slow surrendering to the Allure to Artificial Intelligence

It doesn't seem like much to get one small cut. However, a thousand? A thousand cuts have the power to alter everything.

Have you ever been up in the middle of the night, bleary-eyed, and engrossed in something you didn't even remember looking for, only to find yourself scrolling endlessly? Maybe it was a curious thought, a little “What if?” that led you down a digital rabbit hole. And there you are, two hours later, wondering how this small act pulled you so far in. This is how artificial intelligence—our ever-present, all-knowing technological companion—seeps into our lives. Not as a loud, booming revolution but as a soft whisper, a slow creep, each new convenience drawing us in just a bit deeper. One swipe, one click, one surrender at a time.

AI: The Silent Hand Reshaping Beauty

Two letters, forever changing the world—and, yes, even the way we see beauty. AI has cracked open new doors in the beauty industry, from skin analysis and shade-matching to virtual makeup try-ons. It offers fresh possibilities for people who may have never had access before, bridging gaps for those with mobility or visual impairments. Voice-activated AI can walk you through makeup routines; it even pushes design innovations like easier-to-open packaging and larger fonts. There’s power in this technology, and it’s moving fast.

But here’s the truth we don’t always want to look at: with every advance, every “improvement,” something falls by the wayside. While AI reshapes beauty, it also redefines it in ways that leave too many of us out. In a recent study, the Washington Post fed prompts like “beautiful woman” to AI image generators—Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion—and the results were sobering. Picture after picture showed slender, young, and light-skinned women. Only 2% of these images showed visible signs of aging, and a mere 9% showed dark skin tones. Here’s what that means: in AI’s vision, beauty doesn’t look like most of us. It doesn’t see the beauty in our wrinkles, in the richness of dark skin, or the brilliance of bodies that don’t fit narrow standards. I can’t help but wonder, where do I—and so many others—fit into this algorithm’s idea of beauty?

The Matrix Effect: Choosing to See Reality

And that got me thinking. If you’ve seen The Matrix, you know that iconic choice—swallow the blue pill to stay in a blissful slumber, or take the red pill to see the world as it is. Today, the choice isn’t a pill. It’s about how much of ourselves we’re willing to let AI define. Beauty is everywhere—in airports, in coffee shops, in subways, in faces of every complexion and every age. I see it every day in people AI may never recognize if we aren’t careful. And if AI can’t see us, who else won’t?

People often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing you are the beholder - Salma Hayek

Standing at the Threshold: Three Skills for Staying Human

To keep from being consumed by a thousand tiny cuts, we need three things: deep engagement, relentless curiosity, and a commitment to what makes us profoundly human—our heart.

1. Engage Deeply: Learn AI by Using It

Like Neo choosing to explore the unknown, we each have a choice: to truly understand AI or to passively consume it and follow it like sheep. AI isn’t waiting for us to catch up; it’s evolving minute by minute. Personally, I spend two to three hours daily on AI—testing, exploring, learning. Every new feature, each algorithm, reveals both possibilities and hidden risks.

Let’s be real—if we’re not using AI, it’s using us. Try the free versions of ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and other tools reshaping the world. Don’t just read about AI; dive in. Play with it. Each experience brings clarity, helping us spot when convenience becomes quiet control or misrepresentation. By engaging actively, we learn to see AI’s edges and to feel when it’s overstepping. It’s how we stay ahead, remaining intentional about what parts of our lives we’re willing to let AI touch. Head over to my website and sign up for my newsletter where there’s an active list, updated daily of resources and free courses you can take to play with and understand the potential power of AI and how you can use it to become the best version of YOU.

2. Question Everything: Keep AI in Check with a Rebel’s Mindset

In The Matrix, Neo’s power wasn’t in his strength but in his questioning. That’s the mindset we need. Each time AI “knows” something about us, we should question it. Not to dismiss, but to validate, to seek truth, and stay in control.

Once, I asked AI to compare my image to its notion of beauty, only to be reminded of its limitations. It didn’t just fall short; it reinforced biases, giving answers that didn’t represent the fullness of who I am. AI doesn’t question itself, no matter how wrong it may be. So, we must be its counterbalance. History’s changemakers—from Socrates to Rosa Parks—knew the power of asking, “Is this right?” In the AI era, every unexamined answer consumed and actioned as fact, is another cut, another surrender. Let’s make questioning second nature, treating AI as an advisor, not an oracle.

Remember, just as with people who may give advice for their benefit rather than ours, AI advice is shaped by datasets that don’t always tell the whole story.

3. Preserve Human Connection: The Uncuttable Core AI Can’t Replicate

A basic truth is at the core of The Matrix: human connection is the source of purpose and stability. The many layers of shared experiences, sympathies, and subtleties humans share with one another cannot be replicated by any machine. AI is unable to feel, but it can evaluate data. Although it can mimic speech, it is unable to comprehend our experiences.

We must tenaciously defend our humanity as AI takes root. Even if machines are quicker, they are devoid of empathy, intuition, and life experience-based wisdom. We don’t just need smart leaders; we need wise ones. Leaders who rely solely on their intellect must remember that machines will always be “smarter.” Machines have chips; we have hearts.

In a world awash in tech marvels, nurturing our humanity isn’t a luxury—it’s essential. Yes, be smart. But be wise. Connect with each other, stay grounded, and refuse to let those thousand cuts erode what makes us distinctly, powerfully human.