App Claims to Use AI to Show What Your Children Would Look Like

"The scary thing about this... is how accurate it has been."

AI-Generated Offspring

A generative AI app dubbed Remini has gone viral on TikTok, claiming to offer users an AI-powered glimpse at their future children, Chicago-based broadcaster ABC7 reports.

But while the app's outputs are understandably fascinating to users, it — as any face-scanning app does — certainly raises the question: should you hand over your data to get a glimpse of what your future offspring could look like?

The process seems simple enough. Users upload a photo of themselves and a partner, and the program quickly whips up a few photos of generative AI-spun tots.

And according to the folks who use it, the results are pretty impressive.

"I'm at the age where I'm married, and I'm ready to start having children," a TikTok influencer named Melissa McDuffie, who boasts around 200,00o followers on the video-sharing app, told ABC7. "I thought it would be interesting to go ahead and see what they might look like."

"The AI can take your pictures and formulate this image, and it's so realistic," she added.

Dystopia Spiral

Security experts, however, have their reservations. After all, any program that requires biometric data deserves scrutiny, and in this case, at least theoretically, the data you're coughing up could be particularly precious.

"The scary thing about this... is how accurate it has been," David Barton, CTO of the cybersecurity firm High Wire Networks, told ABC 7. "I've seen video clips of folks who have taken the father and the mother, put them in the app and it kicks off a picture that looks like their kid. And, that's a little bit creepy."

"Are we unintentionally giving future pictures of our kids for folks who might be using it for malicious purposes? I don't know," the expert pondered. "My gut says, I wouldn't do it."

Act Natural

While that may sound pretty dystopian, we know very little about how AI-generated data will be used in the future; at least for the time being, being cautious about offering personal data to AI tools across the board might be a wise move.

"If you're going to do it, understand there are risks," Barton told ABC7. "At the end of the day, we AI-manage our lives by the risks we deal with day in and day out."

For its part, Remini told ABC7 in a statement that they take "data protection and privacy very seriously," and "have robust protocols in place to ensure we safeguard user rights."

"By its very nature, the app is constantly evolving," the company added, "and we will continue to take action to apply safeguards and ensure user privacy."

More on privacy: Multiple Countries Investigating Sam Altman’s Eye-scanning Orb