‘ChatGPT Barbie is a threat’: Experts warn against AI doll trend, raise climate concerns | Trending
Apr 14, 2025 03:12 PM Experts warn that the Barbie trend using AI for personalization could harm privacy, culture, and the environment due to high electricity consumption. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT offering new services like creating mini-me versions of people to re-package themselves as pocket-sized dolls like Baribie and action figures. People use brief prompts to tranform their photos through AI to mimick the box and font of popular toys like Barbie. The AI Barbie-box style image has taken over the internet. (Created using ChatGPT) They also enjoy that they can personalise it further with their name, job and clothing choices. The result is a truly unique customisable version of yourself that you can share with the world. But this new Barbie trend has experts urging users to beware of the fear of missing out overriding concerns about AI’s energy and data use, the BBC reported. Impact on climateWhile experts agree that generative AI can make it easier to jump on trends, they also warn of the effect of excessive usage of such tools on the environment. With more and more people following the trend and using AI tools to generate similar images, the data centres used to power it consume more and more electricity. Professor Gina Neff of Queen Mary University London told the BBC that ChatGPT is “burning through energy” and uses more electricity in a year than 117 countries. “ChatGPT Barbie represents a triple threat to our privacy, our culture and our planet. While the personalisation might feel nice, these systems are putting brands and characters into a blender with no responsibility for the slop that emerges,” she said. Jo Bromilow, director of social and influencer at PR and creative agency MSL UK told BBC: “Is a cute, funny result really worth it? If we’re going to really use AI properly, we have to set guardrails around how we use it conscientiously,” she said. News / Trending / ‘ChatGPT Barbie is a threat’: Experts warn against AI doll trend, raise climate concerns See Less
