AI video showing what Kardashians would look like ‘without plastic surgery’ sparks debate

A viral TikTok video that claims to show what the Kardashian-Jenner family would look like “without plastic surgery” through the use of artificial intelligence has sparked a debate.

The video is the work of Australian streamers Vandahood Live, who uploaded the clip to TikTok last month. “AI shows Kardashians without plastic surgery,” a caption on the video claimed.

The video begins with actual footage of 25-year-old Kylie Jenner and then shows how she’d allegedly look without cosmetic surgery in a clip edited with AI. Jenner has been open about having lip fillers, but previously denied undergoing additional cosmetic surgery procedures.

The TikTok then focused on Khloe Kardashian and compares how she looks to the “AI prediction”. In 2021, Kardashian revealed that she had a nose job and injections, and has also tried Botox, but found that she “responded horribly” to it.

Of course, there’s also an AI prediction of Kim Kardashian, which showed her current appearance alongside an edited version of the same footage, as well as a version of 66-year-old matriarch Kris Jenner, and of Kourtney Kardashian.

According to the streamers, the AI version of Kris “made her actually look closer to an actual 66 year old,” while they claimed “Kourtney looks the same”.

As for how they came to the AI-manufactured results, Keith from Vandahood Live told PetaPixel: “We used three different AI software and two different standard graphics software and a full week to pull it off. We had to take a different approach for each member of the family since each one underwent different changes over the years.”

However, on TikTok, where the video was captioned: “Which Kardashian or Jenner do you think had the biggest transformation?” it has sparked a debate in the comments, where many viewers responded negatively to the clip.

The majority of critics claimed that the the AI predictions are inaccurate because they are based on different or outdated makeup looks, with many claiming that the differences in makeup application are the only variations.

“Kim just has less makeup,” one person claimed, while another viewer said: “Kim and Kourt look the same, just different makeup.”

“It’s just putting old images on top of their faces. Same look, just without makeup,” someone else alleged, a point that one viewer reiterated when they wrote: “AI??? It’s basically a copy and paste from their 2007 faces.”

Other viewers pointed out that the differences in appearance may also be from ageing.

“This isn’t AI lol. These are just old photos of them,” one person wrote.

Another said: “I look completely different than I used to when I was younger without having any plastic surgery so it’s unfair to Kylie to say that.”

“Honestly they really don’t look crazy different lmao and Kylie was like 15 in that…I look COMPLETELY different from 15 like, unrecognisable,” someone else pointed out, while one viewer said: “I think as you grow your face just changes naturally.”

While speaking to PetaPixel, the streamers acknowledged the debate caused by the video in the comments section and added that they conducted the experiment “really just out of curiosity and to see how well the tech could pull it off”.

“In the comments section of the TikTok video, there has been all these debates on the Kardashians’ influence and people either going against or defending them. But for us it wasn’t that deep, it was all only for entertainment purposes,” Keith said.

He added: “It’s still very early days for AI and it still has a long way to go but the future of entertainment is most certainly going to be AI heavy. This new world of AI has made it possible to do things that were impossible only a few years ago. It feels like every month there’s a new AI tool being released that can do incredible things.”

The Independent has contacted Vandahood Live for comment.