AI has passed the aesthetic Turing Test − and it’s changing our relationship with art

It may not have a soul, but AI has learned the mathematical recipe for the sights and sounds that most people find moving. Jacob Wackerhausen/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Pick up an August 2025 issue of Vogue and you’ll come across an advertisement for the brand Guess featuring a stunning model. Yet tucked away in small print is a startling admission: She isn’t real. She was generated entirely by AI.

For decades, fashion images have been retouched. But this isn’t airbrushing a real person; it’s a “person” created from scratch, a digital composite of data points, engineered to appear as a beautiful woman.