When Annie Luong opened up TikTok recently, she could not escape the filter that has been dominating her feed: Bold Glamour.
“I just saw a lot of girls turning on this filter, and their reaction to the filter and how it was such an advanced filter. So I wanted to try it,” said Luong, a 28-year-old who works in management consulting in Toronto.
This filter goes far beyond putting a face-altering layer over someone’s image. TikTok has remained cagey about how Bold Glamour works but experts say it uses advanced artificial intelligence to remold a face into something entirely new. Noses are thinned, chins are more sculpted, cheeks are raised and eyes are brightened, as a process known as machine learning remaps people’s faces.
The results have captivated legions of TikTokkers — Bold Glamour has been viewed on the platform more than 400 million times since it was released last month.
“OK, this looks pretty cool, but it just didn’t feel like reality,” Luong said recently, gazing at her pore-less, shimmering face recreated by Bold Glamour.
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