Does Lensa AI think all Asian people look the same?

18 AI-generated images of my face showing what looks like 18 different East Asian women, according to Lensa.
18 interpretations of my face, according to Lensa.
A screenshot of six beautiful AI-generated portraits advertised on Lensa’s Instagram
AI-generated portrait examples from Lensa’s Instagram.
A collage of 10 of my own selfies I used to feed the Lensa AI.
Some of the selfies I fed the AI.

“The type of AI we utilise for Magic Avatars may generate artefacts, inaccuracies, and defects in output images — it’s out of our control. So please acknowledge and accept that risk before continue [sic].”

An AI-generated portrait of an anonymous East Asian woman with purple hair, a T-shirt, and a backpack.
“I know her. She’s just not you.” — a friend
An AI-generated portrait of an anonymous East Asian woman wearing a T-shirt with another anonymous East Asian woman’s face on it.
Two faces for the price of one!
An AI-generated portrait of a blonde East Asian woman who looks like a character out of a fantasy movie or video game.
One of the more perplexing results from the “Fantasy” style that was apparently only trained on children.
An AI-generated portrait of an anonymous East Asian woman in a soft, feminine style.
From the Focus style, which was a total miss. Pretty sure we were in orchestra together though.
An AI-generated portrait of an anonymous East Asian woman in a soft, feminine style.
“This doesn’t even look like it could be your cousin.” — a friend
An AI-generated portrait of an anonymous East Asian woman in a sci-fi, art nouveau style.
Should’ve used fewer photos from my “overfilling my brows” era.
An AI-generated portrait of an anonymous East Asian woman in a sci-fi, art nouveau style.
Almost.
An AI-generated portrait of an anonymous East Asian woman with one eyelid drooping.
Points for not giving me rhinoplasty. Minus points for … the eye thing.
An AI-generated portrait of an anonymous East Asian woman with one eyelid drooping.
Fine, Lensa, you win.
An AI-generated portrait of an anonymous crosseyed East Asian woman wearing a flower crown and raising a deformed hand.
“She looks like a princess who was kicked by a horse as a baby but still needs to be painted accurately.” — my personal trainer
An AI-generated portrait of an anonymous East Asian woman wearing red in front of a mountainous background.
“Bro, it turned me Chinese. I’m Korean… This app is so racist.” — RubidiumMoon, in response to this AI-generated image
A screenshot of a whiteboard containing hundreds of AI generated images from my photosets categorized by accuracy.
My FigJam analysis.
An image of a tweet with 3 AI-generated portraits and the caption: “And who is this supposed to be? This is a white woman. I’m dark skinned!”
Source: Twitter
An Instagram comment reading: We have many cases of black people being represented as white in some packs. Are you doing something about it to improve the results?
A top comment on one of Lensa’s Instagram posts.

“I am ashamed to say that I paid this AI TWICE to learn how to recognize my Asian features… but now I get to share my favorite video game/anime ones hehe.”

An AI-generated portrait in the anime style that looks like me.
“This one stood out to me as accurate” — a friend
A black & white AI-generated portrait in the Light style that looks like me.
“Okay this one is great, we know this person!” — a friend

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Sr. UX Researcher at NYU Langone Health. Formerly Facebook, Instagram, and Zapier. DJ. Based in Brooklyn. https://www.cattran.design/

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Cat Tran

Sr. UX Researcher at NYU Langone Health. Formerly Facebook, Instagram, and Zapier. DJ. Based in Brooklyn. https://www.cattran.design/