No American could dispute this: browse any website that touches in any way on current events in America and you will see a picture of Elon Musk. Today. Tomorrow. Every day. You’ll see many of them. Every article that mentions him will have a photo attached.
I’m kind of sick of seeing his mug. I found his image unappealing long before I had an opinion on what he is doing to our society, our economy, our government and our nation. I’ve seen enough of his smirking face. It’s burned into my memory. I don’t need to see it every day. I don’t want to see it every day. But there is no way to avoid it.
But perhaps there could be a way to stay connected online with current events and not have to look at his face multiple times per day.
Wouldn’t it be great to have an AI-assisted browser that would allow users to specify any public figure and associate that figure with a designated substitute, so that before the browser loaded a picture of the specified person, any images would be face-swapped with the substitute? So that all photos of Elon Musk’s face could be replaced with, say, Cary Grant? Set the browser to swap Donald Trump with Corey Feldman?
It would be equal-opportunity; right-wing users could avoid seeing Tim Walz or Alexandria Ocasio Cortez if they wanted to, replaced with Chuck Norris and Melania Trump. Or hey, they could opt for treating themselves to even more Elon, swapping him for everybody, heck, even for Donald Trump himself if they wanted that super-special secret thrill that I’m sure more than a few of them do.
I’m sure there is some down side to allowing users to filter and alter images in this manner, but I don’t see that it facilitates mischief any more than the currently available AI image manipulation tools allow anyway. If the picture shows Elon actually doing something, I’ll still understand what he did, even if I’m seeing Joy Behar doing it instead. It sounds technically feasible, doesn’t it?
I get that sites such as DailyKos have to adhere to expected standards of visual appeal, and include photos of the subjects of stories, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who would pay for either a browser capable of this.
And if I can’t have the browser, perhaps sites like this one could offer an Elon-free version to paying readers, like many offer ad-free versions? You don’t even have to bother with the AI face-swap, just load a picture of a kitten instead of any photo including Musk. I’m willing to forego any information added by the photograph in return for not having to look at that face for a few minutes.
