{"id":473179,"date":"2026-02-11T16:27:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/473179\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T16:27:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:27:24","slug":"caricature-trend-why-you-shouldnt-make-an-animation-using-ai-privacy-concerns-and-energy-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/473179\/","title":{"rendered":"Caricature trend: Why you shouldn\u2019t make an animation using AI, privacy concerns and energy use"},"content":{"rendered":"

You upload a photo, press generate, and if you\u2019ve used ChatGPT enough, moments later a glossy, cartoon-perfect version of yourself appears on screen, complete with your career, hobbies and personality neatly packaged into a single image.<\/p>\n

The viral AI caricature trend has flooded social media feeds in recent weeks, with people clearly keen to see how artificial intelligence views them.<\/p>\n

But while the results are often cute or funny, experts say the trend raises bigger questions about privacy, identity and the hidden environmental cost of AI.<\/p>\n

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Dr Jessamy Perriam, a senior lecturer in the School of Cybernetics at the Australian National University, said her immediate reaction to the trend was sceptical.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike a lot of AI trends, my instant gut reaction is like, \u2018oh, but why?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cWhy are we doing this? What value does it kind of add?\u201d<\/p>\n

Although she didn\u2019t initially want to generate a caricature, Dr Perriam created one so she could better understand what was happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really interesting from that perspective, having myself reflected back to me by a machine\u2026 it just feels totally bizarre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Privacy and intellectual property concerns<\/p>\n

One of the biggest risks, Dr Perriam said, comes down to what users are giving away when they upload an image.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow you\u2019re prompting ChatGPT to get this caricature in the first place\u201d matters, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to upload an image, and the privacy concerns are what else is within that image and whether there\u2019s anything you perhaps wouldn\u2019t want the internet or ChatGPT to know about you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Background details can carry unintended consequences. Dr Perriam pointed to warnings shared by members of Australia\u2019s First Nations community about intellectual property risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe really careful with what\u2019s in the background of the image that you upload,\u201d she said. \u201cThere might be intellectual property at play here that you might not want to have a machine replicate for profit.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a basic level, Dr Perriam said the system is doing more than simply creating a cartoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cChatGPT is grabbing the picture you\u2019ve uploaded, doing a quick (internet) search of you, and then reflecting back through imagery what your job is about, or what your professional life kind of says about you based on keywords it\u2019s found,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

That information is often public, but the risks increase as users add more personal detail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more you disclose, the likelihood is higher of your privacy being at risk,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s no different to how most people would use the internet on a day-to-day basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SampleSample caricature using ChatGPT. Credit: The Nightly<\/p>\n

The hidden energy cost of AI trends<\/p>\n

Beyond privacy, there is another cost most users never see: energy and water consumption.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tricky to pin down the exact number on energy and water consumption,\u201d Dr Perriam said, noting that companies operating data centres are often not transparent about their environmental impact.<\/p>\n

However, existing estimates give a sense of scale.<\/p>\n

Using an older version of ChatGPT to write a 100-word email which is usually around two steps, she said, consumes \u201cthe equivalent of like a 500ml bottle of water and the equivalent of switching on 14 LED lights for an hour\u201d.<\/p>\n

Generating an AI caricature is significantly more complex, therefore using even more than half a litre of water per search.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this AI caricature trend, that kind of ramps it up to about five steps,\u201d Dr Perriam said, including analysing the uploaded image, searching the internet for references, identifying keywords and generating multiple visual elements.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some folks [there are] a few backwards and forwards prompts and revisions,\u201d she said. \u201cThat would become quite costly in terms of energy and water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChatGPT\"ChatGPT Credit: The Nightly<\/p>\n

Despite her concerns, Dr Perriam isn\u2019t surprised the trend has taken off.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a curiosity thing,\u201d she said. \u201cYou see how it\u2019s transformed someone and you want to know what that transformation would be like for yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the images are often quite flattering, so Dr Perriam understands the appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turns someone into an ideal version of themselves,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But as AI-generated trends continue to come and go, Dr Perriam believes they\u2019re worth slowing down for, even when they seem harmless.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI image trends, I don\u2019t think they\u2019re going away anytime soon,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year there\u2019ll be a trend that kind of catches hold of the imagination of people, and then it dies down until the next thing pops up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You upload a photo, press generate, and if you\u2019ve used ChatGPT enough, moments later a glossy, cartoon-perfect version…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,6213,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-473179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-society","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}