If you’re on social media at all, you’ve almost certainly noticed a new wave of stylized, artistic portraits taking over your feed. Maybe your friend posted an Instagram photo in which they appear to be the subject of an antique oil painting, or someone you follow on TikTok shared a portrait of themselves that looks like it could be a screenshot of an anime series. Where are all of these pictures coming from? Have all your friends become talented artists overnight? Probably not! These images have likely been generated via an app called Lensa AI, which uses artificial intelligence to create “Magic Avatars” based on pictures you submit. Keep reading to find out more about the new AI art generator TikTok can’t get enough of, including how it works, how you can use it, and if you should use it.
How TikTok’s Favorite AI Art Generator Works
To generate your “Magic Avatars,” you first need to upload 10-20 selfies so that a model of your face can be created. Lensa then uses a copy of a popular machine learning model known as Stable Diffusion, which allows it to generate a wide range of artistic portraits based on your facial features. The different artistic styles are rendered from the massive amounts of image data that the model has been trained on, enabling it to recognize and reproduce a vast number of styles in a relatively coherent way. Essentially, Lensa is an example of cutting-edge technology being used for fun and entertainment, which is why it’s been catapulted into fame as the AI art generator TikTok loves.
How You Can Access Lensa AI
Are you looking to hop on the trend and maybe give your profile picture an artistic refresh? If so, then the good news is that it’s fairly easy to do so. You simply need to download the Lensa AI app and upload 10-20 selfies in order to receive your portraits. However, it’s not free. The Magic Avatars packs start at $3.99 USD, or you can purchase various different subscription packages if you plan on using the AI art generator more than once.
Should You Use Lensa AI? Things to Consider with Tiktok AI Art Generator
While there’s no denying that Lensa is a fun tool to use, there are still a couple of things you may want to consider before downloading it. The first is that the AI art generator may produce images which are odd, inappropriate, or offensive. While this is evidently far from the intended outcome, it’s still a possibility since there’s nobody verifying the content of the portraits generated by the model before they’re delivered to you. For this reason, the creators of the app advise against minors using the technology. Additionally, some have voiced privacy concerns over the collection of their biometric information from the uploaded photos. However, Andrey Usoltsev, the CEO and cofounder of the company that created Lensa, has stated that your photos are deleted from their servers “as soon as the avatars are generated.” So, as with any new technology, it’s best to be cautious when using it.
Final Thoughts
It’s not hard to see why this AI art generator has taken over TikTok and other social media platforms—it’s fun, easy to use, and produces entertaining results. Now that you finally know where all of those colourful, artistic portraits of your friends are coming from, you can create some yourself. However, as with everything you see on the internet, it’s important to know the implications of the technology you’re using and to interact with it wisely.