Chart: The Rapid Rise of Lensa AI

If you are using social media regularly, chances are you've come across some artistic renditions of other users over the past few days. That's thanks to the latest viral sensation Lensa AI, a photo-editing app using artificial intelligence to create what it calls "magic avatars". Having been fed 10 to 20 photos of any person, the app uses the open-source Stable Diffusion model to create realistic avatars of that person that look like they were made by an artist. Because there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, and sure enough users eventually have to pay at least $3.99 for their own "magic avatars". There are some impressive results floating around though, which is why users are excused for being tempted into paying the fee to find out what their digital counterparts look like.