Exercise has an image problem.
All too often, the focus of exercise is purely on the aesthetic. Research shows this is damaging to our mental wellbeing and can actually put us off exercising.
Just ask AI to portray someone who is healthy and exercises.
You get images of people with minimal body fat, chiseled jaws, and muscles – some even with 12-pack abs.
AI has been taught that exercise is purely for physical transformations. This is feeding into unrealistic body standards and damaging our mental wellbeing…and it has learnt this from us.
The use of AI is growing rapidly.
It is being used to give medical advice, work as virtual personal trainers, and even replacing human models in magazines and campaigns. Whilst AI can be used to benefit people and society, ASICS believes it’s important that AI is taught to unlearn dangerous stereotypes that could reverse years of work to improve our self-confidence and mental wellbeing.
This is why ASICS created the world's first AI Training Programme.
Launched in April 2023, the Programme was created to teach AI tools that the power of exercise is much more than physical gain.
The AI Training Programme is a bank of images of real people enjoying the uplifting feeling exercise brings, not aesthetics, combined with bespoke lines of code and AI prompts. Helping any AI learn what real faces and bodies look like, not just extreme transformations.
Submissions are now closed.
Thanks to everyone who donated their exercise image to the AI Training Programme and helped ASICS teach AI the real power of exercise.
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