World’s First AI Beauty Pageant: $20,000 Grand Prize Sparks Excitement

First prize $20,000, runner-ups $5,000 Each
Judging criteria: beauty, tech, social clout
Controversy over Indonesian beauty pageant winner’s inappropriate video

Daily Mail announced that the creator platform Fanvue is set to host the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI) beauty pageant, the World AI Creator Awards, in May and is currently recruiting participants.

Contestants simply need to submit a beautiful female image created by an AI program and prepare responses to a few questions from Fanvue. The released questions include details about how the AI image was realized.

Typical beauty pageant questions, such as “What are your ambitions to make the world a better place?” are also included, showing a structure similar to an actual pageant.

According to the media, after the candidates were narrowed down to ten at the preliminary round at the end of this month, three winners will be announced at the finals, which are scheduled for May.

The first-place Miss AI will receive a total prize of $13,000, boasting a scale similar to the prize money of actual beauty pageants. The second and third places are known to receive $5,000 and $2,000, respectively.

Fanvue has identified the judging criteria as beauty, tech, and social clout. The first criterion, beauty, assesses how balanced the generated AI image is and how well it meets the standard of beauty.

Secondly, tech evaluates how intricately the participant has conceived the prompts in generating the AI image. A key point is how well areas around the hands and eyes, where errors are most common in AI, are implemented to resemble real people.

Lastly, social clout is evaluated based on how much attention the participant has garnered using their social media accounts.

The media introduced the AI beauty pageant’s evaluation procedure, which is similar to a regular beauty pageant. However, a difference is that an AI is included among the judges, so both humans and AI are evaluated. Fanvue explained that they will conduct objective evaluations led by four judges with exceptional expertise in beauty pageants, marketing, modeling, etc., including AI.

The human judging panel includes Sally-Ann Fawcett, a professional judge for various beauty pageants in the UK, and PR expert Andrew Bloch, which raises expectations for the evaluations in this competition.

Judge Fawcett said, “I am very pleased to participate as a judge in this forward-looking competition,” and claimed, “What’s interesting is that there are many similarities between real beauty pageant contestants and AI creators.” She added, “The difference is that none of the participants are human, and the application of AI technology is a major judging item.”

William Monange, co-founder of Fanvue, said, “Shortly, I hope events like the World AI Creator Award will continue to develop like the Oscars of the AI creation world.”

Meanwhile, the news of the AI beauty pageant has brought renewed attention to an incident where a Malaysian beauty pageant winner was stripped of her title due to a controversial video she posted during her vacation.

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on the 9th (local time), Viru Nikah Terinsip (24), who won the Malaysian beauty pageant, was caught in controversy and lost her beauty pageant title after a video of her dancing inappropriately with scantily clad male dancers during her vacation in Thailand was released.

After winning the Johor Unduk Ngadau beauty pageant last year (2023), Terinsip continued to be active as a beauty influencer. Perhaps her fame was the root cause, as a 53-second dance video on her TikTok account received a backlash from the public. Netizens who saw the video reacted, saying, “The man in the video was too obscene, and it was inappropriate behavior for a beauty pageant winner.”

In response, the Kadazan Dusun Cultural Association (KDCA), which hosted the beauty pageant, decided to strip her of her winner’s title. KDCA President Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan said, “We cannot acknowledge Terinsip’s victory,” and explained, “Her behavior does not fit with the spirit of the competition, which represents the soul of the mythical Huminodun, a queen of beauty with complete and inherent beauty of spirit and soul.” However, he added, “It would not have been a problem if she were an ordinary person.”

The forward-looking move to evaluate beauty with technology, not humans, in this AI competition attracts attention due to the incident in which Terinsip was stripped of her winning title a year after winning the beauty pageant due to her displeasing behavior.