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I have a wildlife blogger friend who likes to describe a perfect day as being ‘HD clear’. Well, would you believe people are walking into plastic surgeons’ clinics asking for much the same thing? Kids as young as 15 have carried in AI-edited images of themselves and asked for real-life replication. So have 70-year-old women.
I must say, I turned my hair a beautiful shade of blue thanks to AI and wouldn’t mind trying that out, but that’s as far as I would go. Yet globally, as well as in India, cosmetic surgeons say they are receiving requests for full-fledged facial reconstruction to match a digital avatar. Bollywood celebrities can go home.
Believe it or not, this has happened before. Back in 2018, ‘Snapchat Dysmorphia’ took hold among young people who walked into clinics armed with heavily filtered selfies, asking to look like their edited versions. They wanted baby-smooth flawless skin, thin shapely noses, big eyes and sharp features. Now we have AI Dysmorphia, which seems to have given this bizarre phenomenon a new lease of life.
Impossible ideal
You dream it up and AI can now do it for you. Chiselled facial contours, full lips, doll-like wide eyes and perfect symmetry can be generated in seconds. But this hyper-idealized— and often cartoonish— look is no easy touch-up. It is practically a reconstruction, and often impossible to achieve safely.
In Mumbai, plastic reconstructive surgeon Dr. Parag Telang has spoken about seeing this trend among teenagers and people who are constantly on camera. Patients want cat-eye lifts, dramatically upturned “Barbie” noses and ultra-sharp jawlines. Many surgeons say they have to turn down such requests because they are either unsafe or would look unnatural in real life.
The hyper-symmetry produced by AI would create real problems in real life. Eyes cannot simply be shifted within their bony sockets without neurological chaos. Beautifully narrow noses could lead to breathing difficulties. And there’s no saying what would happen to aggressively lifted cheekbones as skin naturally sags with age.
But sadly, for many people, the AI look has begun to feel normal.
Beauty loop
As to why-oh-why anyone would want such an artificial appearance, there are many culprits. One is the amount of time we spend on video calls, staring at ourselves on screen. Another is Instagram culture, where less-than-perfect often feels unacceptable.
On top of that, there is the rapid rise of AI avatars, AI twins and Memojis. All of it is quietly shifting modern beauty standards, particularly for Gen Z.
In many cases, dissatisfaction with appearance stems from mental health struggles, but it can also deepen issues around self-esteem and self-worth.
What makes this trend especially troubling is how personal it feels. Unlike comparing yourself to a celebrity, you are now competing with an idealized version of your own face. Because the AI image is generated from your photograph, it somehow feels more legitimate, more achievable. That illusion is powerful— and dangerous.
Human faces
Responsible surgeons are trying to push back. They counsel patients, show realistic before-and-after photos, and sometimes refuse procedures that cross into unsafe territory. But the pressure from social media, combined with the sheer ease of generating these “perfect” images, keeps the demand alive.
There is a deep irony here. We created artificial intelligence to make life better, easier and more creative. Yet in this one area, it is quietly manufacturing new insecurities. We are no longer just chasing beauty— we are trying to turn ourselves into digital renderings.
Perhaps the real solution does not lie with the scalpel. Maybe it lies in learning to look at our unfiltered, imperfect, wonderfully human selves with a little more kindness.
And finally, no algorithm should get to decide how blue my hair should be.
The New Normal: The world is at an inflexion point. Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be as massive a revolution as the Internet has been. The option to just stay away from AI will not be available to most people, as all the tech we use takes the AI route. This column series introduces AI to the non-techie in an easy and relatable way, aiming to demystify and help a user to actually put the technology to good use in everyday life.
Mala Bhargava is most often described as a ‘veteran’ writer who has contributed to several publications in India since 1995. Her domain is personal tech, and she writes to simplify and demystify technology for a non-techie audience.
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