A Nigerian-Australian model who had previously worked for suit company Peter Jackson is suing the company, alleging that the company used AI technology in order to whiten his skin for promotional advertisements.
Elii Emeghebo made the shocking discovery while walking past the company’s shop located in Sydney years ago and immediately emailed his agent.
“My nose was reshaped, my skin tone and my eye colour was significantly lightened and there’s some reshaping around my eyebrows and my eye shape to be more Eurocentric and a lot less black,” he told ABC News Breakfast.
He added, “It’s not a good thing when you go from a shoot, something you’re really proud of … and you walk past the shop and see basically you, but without your identity there. It was really confronting and really unfair.”
In his suit, Emeghebo also alleges he should have been compensated for the use of his original image being “whitewashed,” as he had only been contracted for use on the brand’s digital channels.
While Peter Jackson Australia admits it used AI to alter Emeghebo’s appearance for advertisements, it denies it did so based on race and says it did not do so to discriminate against him.
“Any suggestion that this process was undertaken because of Mr Emeghebo’s race, colour or ethnic origin is categorically denied,” the statement from the company read. “Any suggestion that we intentionally engaged in racial discrimination is false, and we reject it unequivocally.”
The lawsuit, which Emeghebo filed with the Australian Human Rights Commission, is not the first to allege that companies are using AI to alter the likeness of certain models.
In May, Dominican model Francheska Pujols filed a lawsuit against Rainbow USA, alleging the company created an AI image based on her to create sexually suggestive ads featuring her likeness after her contract with the company expired. While the lawsuit was eventually dropped, it raised awareness for how far some companies are going in using AI for ads both in print media and in digital.
