AI is raising stakes for plastic surgery
By DANIEL PAYNE, RUTH READER and ERIN SCHUMAKER
01/30/2024 02:00 PM EST
OPERATING ROOM
Artificial intelligence could turbocharge the social media glamour shot and create new demands — and customers — for plastic surgeons.
“Social media is already very influential in terms of what people expect [they] should look like at 20, at 30, at 40,” Dr. Steven Williams, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, told Daniel.
Williams expects that as AI gets better at manipulating photographs and integrating with social media platforms, it will influence the requests plastic surgeons get — since patients’ self perceptions impact the work surgeons do.
Even so: It’s all an evolution. Not long ago, social media was the emerging technology giving people unrealistic expectations about beauty and aging.
Takeaway: “It’s going to be very, very challenging” for the surgeons, Williams said, since they’re likely to see updated “expectations of what is normal or what can be achieved.”