Aitana Lopez is Spain’s first artificial intelligence (AI)-created model, and looks like a real person to the extent that, as per The Clueless, the agency that created her, an unnamed but well-known Latin American actor, once texted to ask her out, not knowing that she does not exist.
Who is Aitana Lopez?
Speaking to Euronews, Ruben Cruz, Aitana’s designer who founded The Clueless, revealed the circumstances that made the company develop this virtual female.
“We were going through a rough patch as we did not have many clients. So, we started analysing how we were working and realised that many projects were being cancelled due to problems beyond our control. Often it was the fault of the influencer or model and not due to design issues,” Cruz told the website.
The agency, therefore, decided to have its own influencer to be used a model for brands that approached it, leading to Aitana’s ‘birth.’
How is Aitana created?
Each day, Aitana is brought to life by a team that decides what she will ‘do’ during a week, which places she will ‘visit,’ and which photos will be uploaded to her Instagram page, followed by more than 121,000 people, with the count going up by the day.
With Photoshop, design experts superimpose the model at different locations; the photos, on the other hand, are developed using AI.
Aitana’s ‘personality’
According to Cruz, she is a 25-year-old ‘exuberant’ woman from Barcelona – Spain’s second-largest city behind Capital Madrid. Pink-haired, Aitana was created as a fitness enthusiast, determined, and with a ‘complex’ character.
Advertising ‘career’
She earns a little over 1000 euros (around ₹91,000) per advertisement, making up to 10,000 euros (approx. ₹9.1 lakh) per month, though the monthly average is 3000 euros ( ₹2.73 lakh), Cruz said.
In fact, the model has been so successful that the firm created a second virtual female influencer called ‘Maia.’ Also, their names are not at all random, as each contains ‘AI,’ the acronym for artificial intelligence.
Criticism
The project, however, has been criticized for the ‘highly sexualized’ images of the models. In response, The Clueless says it is ‘simply following the aesthetic already created by the real influencers and brands themselves.’