Lensa AI: The app that "takes your photos to the next level"

Is it a new app doing amazing things?
Kind of. It's an image editing app that, according to the makers, "takes your photos to the next level". In case you've seen impossibly surreal selfies of your friends on your social media feed, it's likely they were trying out Lensa. It was the most popular iPhone app in Apple's app store in the US. And the images are going viral.

Why is it so wildly popular?
The computer-generated images do look rather wonderful., especially the ones created using the "Magic Avatar" option. You upload your selfies (or whichever images you want to use) on the app and they are converted into anime-like images or something that looks like a beautiful oil painting. Oh and it's not even a free app - in fact, every time you want to use the Magic Avatar option you need to pay again.

How does it work?
The New York Times reports that an AI-based image generator takes image prompts (the photos) and text prompts (like "anime") to create new images which look quite surreal and fantastic.

Ah! But why is it also controversial?
Some users are reporting that their images are becoming sexualised even if they are only uploading pictures of their faces, or fairer or slimmer. Tech Crunch reported that it was able to create topless avatars of celebrities with images of an actor's head photoshopped onto topless bodies.

That sounds like a recipe for disaster
Yup. Maybe the AIs don't have it after all.