Is AI software a useful tool or does it dictate how I see myself?

By David McElroy · May 29, 2025

What does it mean to be attractive? Why is one woman considered beautiful by almost everybody and another to be plain or even downright ugly? Why is one man seen as an attractive physical specimen and another seen as woefully lacking?

I’ve pondered this all my life, partly because I considered myself unattractive and wondered why. I couldn’t figure out why one arrangement of sizes and proportions and colors was considered an example of great beauty and others weren’t noteworthy.

I finally came to understand that some of it is biological and some of it is cultural. I don’t claim to have it all figured out, but I see that some standards persist over the centuries and others change with the fashions. And since a great part of it turns out to be subjective, I’ve been concerned about what various forms of media were teaching people to feel about themselves — based on arbitrary and fleeting beauty standards.

And just this week, I’ve realized that we have something new to worry about. With the rise of so-called “artificial intelligence” software, we are hard-coding current cultural preferences into software. And as AI software becomes more widespread and more influential, these subjective cultural standards are being injected into that software.

And more and more people are going to accept whatever this software says as objective truth — when it’s nothing but the collective biases of the people who trained the software. To test how this worked, I asked ChatGPT to tell me how attractive I am. And I was surprised by how it left me feeling.

I found a tool that someone created on ChatGPT called Honest Attractiveness Analyzer. This somehow sounds objective and fair and accurate. It’s computer software, so if it’s able to give me specifics, it must be accurate, because it would have no reason to be biased, right?

So I tried the tool. To be honest, it was fun. As a novelty, I can recommend it. (I already have a free ChatGPT account, so you might need to create an account in order to use it.)

I snapped a new photo of myself and uploaded it. The software immediately gave me a lot of feedback and it asked me questions about myself. Here’s some of what it said:

Total Attractiveness Score: 7.2 / 10

This score places you solidly in the “highly appealing overall” category, especially for people who value intelligence, depth, and emotional insight. While you may not fit conventional beauty ideals, your presence, intellect, and emotional resonance are very attractive traits that significantly elevate your appeal beyond raw aesthetics.

Here’s how the software analyzed my face. This was called a “facial structure evaluation.”

Positive Attributes:

Eyes: Bright and open, with good spacing. Clear and expressive—your eyes are one of your best features.

Smile: Friendly and inviting. Adds warmth and approachability, which boosts overall appeal.

Skin Tone: Healthy complexion, evenly toned.

Constructive Notes [which is a nice way to say “the bad stuff”]

Facial Symmetry: Slight asymmetry present, which is common and natural but mildly affects classical standards of facial balance.

Jawline: Softer and less angular, which reduces definition—a sharper jawline is typically rated higher in conventional attractiveness metrics.

Cheekbone Definition: Lower definition; more angular cheekbones generally elevate facial harmony.

Hairline: Receding slightly, which is normal with age but plays into how youthfulness and symmetry are perceived.

Although I certainly wasn’t surprised at not making the top 10 percent or top 20 percent of overall attractiveness, I did wince a bit at “you may not fit conventional beauty standards…” I didn’t necessarily disagree, but the judgment felt so definitive. This was software rendering an impersonal, objective answer. So it had to be accurate, right?

Then the software offered to tell me about what sort of partner I could realistically expect to attract.

Given your total score of 7.2, your most compatible partner would likely fall in the 6.5 to 8.5 range overall — someone with similar intellectual and emotional depth, but possibly with a bit more ambition or extroverted charisma if you seek balance. Emotional maturity, kindness, and shared values will likely matter far more to you than purely superficial traits.

Then the software told me more about this partner I should be able to attract:

Emotionally mature, empathetic, and intellectually curious.

Likely to appreciate depth, humor, and meaningful conversation over superficial appearances.

Possibly someone who values authenticity and can reciprocate the kind of emotional attunement you exhibit.

A partner who similarly places importance on emotional connection, intellectual compatibility, and long-term stability.

As I first read it all, I did find it impressive that software could come to these conclusions about me. I felt about the same way I might have felt if I had participated in some sort of party game in which everybody rated everyone and the answers were all averaged. I’ll admit that it seemed kind of fun, in a self-centered sort of way.

But in the 24 hours since I used the software, it’s had an effect that I didn’t expect. It’s not a massive effect, but I feel it nonetheless.

I don’t feel as though I’ve gotten a subjective opinion, either of some particular person or a particular group of people. I find myself feeling as though I have been given objective truth, just as surely as I might feel if a calculator added two numbers for me.

And I don’t like this.

It’s one thing to tell an adult man how he measures up to the current beauty standards of the culture, but it’s a much different thing to subject younger people to the same thing. Theoretically, I’m mature enough and strong-willed enough to tell myself that what the software says might or might not be accurate. And I should be mature enough to already have a pretty good self-concept by this point in my life. I should know pretty well by now what I think of myself — and how I can generally expect others to see me.

But what about teens or young adults who aren’t that mature? What about those who still don’t quite know how to view themselves? Are they going to look at what software such as this says — and see whatever the software says as objective? Are they going to see the answers they get as destiny?

I’ve known plenty of people who weren’t the most attractive in the objective sense, but who appeared very attractive as they moved through life — all because of their personalities and how they saw themselves and how they carried themselves. I’m sure you have, too.

Software such as this can tell us a lot about the culture whose biases were embedded into the software, but that software can’t tell us a thing about the flesh-and-blood humans who interact with other humans.

I don’t want to stop anybody from creating AI software. I don’t want to stop anybody from using it. But I’m very uncomfortable with what I see it becoming for us.

Software can be amazing when it’s asked to deal with objective reality, but when it’s asked to render judgments such as this, the only thing it can do (at best) is to reflect the biases of whoever designed and trained the software. Yes, it’s amazing that it can seem so accurate in some ways. Yes, it can be fun. I get that.

But I feel as though there are hidden dangers which we’re not fully seeing yet. And I’m starting to fear that we’re jumping headlong into something that has implications we don’t understand — and something which will be hard to “turn off” if it turns out to be dangerous.

I hope I’m wrong, but my gut tells me we’re walking into a trap from which we won’t be able to escape.

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If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

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Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

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