What AI selfies tell us about ourselves

Changing your personality, changing your phone habits, and changing your evening routine (Issue #340)

What AI selfies tell us about ourselves

Changing your personality, changing your phone habits, and changing your evening routine (Issue #340)

By The Medium Blog ∙ May 27, 2025 ∙ 3 min read ∙ View on MediumHumans have always been preoccupied with creating images of ourselves. Designer Darren Yeo analyzes the history of portraiture from oil paintings of kings to Ghibli-style AI selfies of Sam Altman. Across time, we’ve adjusted how we appear to fit a certain ideal. What’s changed is scale. Today, self-portraits aren’t just personal; they’re data, feeding AI systems trained to mimic our expressions, preferences, and styles.Yeo raises urgent questions about whether the rush to democratize image-making truly honors creativity or risks automating it out of existence. He warns that platforms profit from user data and attention while sidelining artists, but also notes that portraiture has always evolved alongside technology. With thoughtful design, AI might expand creative possibilities rather than erase the artist’s role. The challenge is making sure these tools serve creators and communities, not just corporate interests.In a darkly comedic piece, author Edie Meade satirizes the pursuit of perfect, optimized images at the cost of personal well-being in a story about begging a plastic surgeon to make her look like her Facetuned selfies. Meade’s ideal face — sharp-jawed, glowing, cartoon-perfect — is actually a Day of the Dead sugar skull. When the surgeon warns her she might die, she doesn’t flinch. In a world where filters rewrite our features and beauty is measured by engagement metrics, Meade’s narrator chases the logic to its final form: If your real face doesn’t perform, why keep it?Together, these stories ask who controls the image, and why we’re so desperate to improve it. Yeo critiques the systems that commodify identity at scale. Meade parodies the user struggling to keep up. When tools are this powerful, it’s easy to doubt your unfiltered self. But the real question isn’t appearance — it’s authorship. In the age of AI, we face a choice: let fear shape how we see ourselves, or use these tools to reflect what makes us human.— Anna Dorn

🆕 3 new perspectives for your Tuesday

Rather than being a fixed thing, your personality actually changes throughout the course of your life (studies show this happens most profoundly after age 60). Those changes are within your control; if you’re trying, say, to become more open-minded, taking a new class or visiting a place you’ve never been before can help. (Kathleen Murphy)
The U.S. could potentially be a much larger source of the rare earth minerals that tech companies need for hardware without opening new mines, via “waste mining,” a high-intensity form of recycling. (The New Climate)
Want to change your relationship to your phone? Just start by tracking your weekly habits, without judgement, then remove the app that’s the biggest offender. “Track your attention like you track your money. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” (Jano le Roux)

😴 Your daily dose of practical wisdom on routines

No matter how strong your morning routine might be, it’s won or lost the night before.··· Deepen your understanding every day with the Medium Newsletter.Sign up here .Edited and produced by Scott Lamb _ & __Carly Rose Gillis_ Questions, feedback, or story suggestions? Email us:__tips@medium.com Like what you see in this newsletter but not already a Medium member? Read without limits or ads, fund great writers, and join a community that believes in human storytelling .

From The Medium Newsletter

A newsletter by The Medium Blog2M subscribersView on MediumMore from this newsletterSent to registered2nd@gmail.com by The Medium Newsletter on Medium
Unsubscribe from this newsletter or unsubscribe from all newsletters from Medium
Manage your email settings
3500 South DuPont Highway, Suite IQ-101, Dover, DE 19901Careers·Help Center·Privacy Policy·Terms of service