AI brings hilarious Barbie and Ken transformations to Biden and Princess Kate

Celebrity

From Well Cost

July 21, 2023 | 14:06

Your favorite celebrities and politicians Barbified.

Have you ever wondered what President Joe Biden would look like in a Barbie world? You’re in luck: An enterprising film editor is capitalizing on the raging Barbie movie craze by giving the President of the United States and other A-listers Mattel-inspired makeovers with the help of artificial intelligence.

I absolutely loved taking these photos and was laughing the whole time, said freelancer Duncan Thomsen, 53, of his star-studded AI Barbiemaking campaign.

The UK native, who is a big fan of Ryan Gosling, told the South West News Service he was inspired to make celebrities into Barbie and Ken, considering the excitement surrounding Greta Gerwig’s much-anticipated live-action film, which hits theaters in the United States on Friday.

Plus, who wouldn’t love a Barbie makeover? Thomsen said.

To bring famous figures to life in simulated plastic, the digital wizard turned to highly sophisticated Midjourney artificial intelligence software, which responds to user requests and commands and generates images by cross-referencing billions of images online.

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This process has taken some time as AI, despite making us obsolete in every industry, from academia to life partners, requires super specific commands with absolute description, Thomsen explained.

Thankfully, the freelancers’ project paid off as he was able to create a variety of celebrity doll-ppelgangers.

Perhaps the highlight was US Commander-in-Chief Joe Biden reimagined as Ken with signature fufu-pink insignia, six-pack abs, and a pink car.

When has an American president ever sported a six-pack? chuckled Thomsen, who gave former US President Barack Obama (Barack Obarbie?) similar treatment.

AI may not be able to replace our leaders just yet, but it can give them a fantastic makeover.

Others include former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dressed in a pink pantsuit and a Barbie version of Princess of Wales Kate Middleton who looked like the royal had been cursed by a fortune teller she rejected.

On the plus side, it looked more realistic than the Middleton facsimile in the Krakow Wax Museum.

What you want to do is capture the unique essence of the person or places, so bringing Barbie characteristics into that moment starts to look really cool, Thomsen described.

She also used digital software to turn real-world buildings into a Barbie Dreamhouse.

English summed it up like this: Creating these images is a lot of fun, so I thought I’d give everyone a touch of pink and Barbie to the whole world.

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Unfortunately, not all AI-generated images are so fun and frivolous.

In the past, hyper-realistic generative technology had been used for nefarious purposes, from fake images of President Trump being arrested by police to creating images of a Pentagon explosion, the latter of which resulted in a brief stock sell-off.