When We Get Old
“How beautiful is youth that hourly runs away. Enjoy today, if ye want
Naught ye know about tomorrow.”
Lorenzo de’ Medici (from Triumph of Bacchus)
Not everyone wants to grow old and witness the irreparable decay of their body. Let’s face it, it’s not exactly that nice thing to see. Someone resorts to cosmetic remedies — often more mortifying than normal flaking —, someone else chooses instead not to care about it, continuing to act as an indomitable, eternal young spirit dictates.
When Norwegian designer Susanne Hæstad came across Midjourney — an independent research lab that produces a proprietary artificial intelligence program that creates images from textual descriptions — was a little upset. “In these days when there is so much talk about fake news,” she said, “such a program is scary, because you can produce images of people and events that never happened. As an avid newspaper reader who swears by paper and old school stuff, I see clear challenges for the digital media of the future when it comes to the use of artificial intelligence. Because, in the end, who can decide what is true and false?” — And perhaps, on balance, the same dilemma also applies when it comes to the eternity of the soul and the transience of the body?
Anyway, this sense of foreboding didn’t stop Susanne from experimenting Midjourney on her inner circle of friends. “We have a club called the ‘Get together and get it out on a trip and theatre’,” she said. “And then I sat there alone and fantasized at night, and thought: what will we look like when we get old?”.
So, once at home, she typed in a few selected keywords: AbFab, 80-year-old, tough, tattooed ladies at a New York nightclub. Based on that, the program produced a series of images that, maybe, today can make most people face old age optimistically.
Indepest 
Beauty, and dignity; those women have it all.
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Are you serious? This is insulting to women. This is NOT what women of 80 look like. I am 82 and find these AI images absolutely grotesque. The technician who created this photo with an app has no idea what REAL women look like. Look closer. You are too easily fooled.
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I myself have been struggling with this issue of aging. I’m 63. I have a YouTube channel and only show my face with a filter. This article has got me inspired to film the “real me” thank you.
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Hej .
Jeg har en clinic i Danmark der fjerner tatoveringer med laser. I den forbindelse ville jeg så gerne kunne anvende een af de billeder “Når vi bliver gamle” af Susanne Hæstad. Jeg har forsøgt i flere uger at få fat i hende- og endda Sissel fra norske Dagblad – men det er edndnu ikke lykkes. Må man anvende een af de billeder og naturligvis # Susanne Hæstad ?? er der nogen der ved hvor jeg kan finde hende ?
Glæder mig og håber at komme igennem her
med venlig hilsen
Betina
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HI
I need to get in touch with susanne Hæstad regarding a picture of the indepest . do you know how to get hold of her- or can i use one picture and use # ???
please get back to me
I have tried for weeks now and are almost given up
please help me
warm regards
Betina
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so as we grow older we grow more fingers? wear sunglasses on our face And head? one arm gets longer than the other? pinkies grow longer? Ai art is interesting and even cool sometimes, and then there’s times where it makes nightmare fuel. look at the pictures more deeply. Look at their fingers. Look at where the hands/arms are in relation to the rest of their body. The two fighting- one of them has a really odd hand and wrist. I don’t know what’s going on there but anatomically that’s not normal. One lady’s hair is also smoke. They’re part and parcel. There’s a glass on the table- it’s two glasses in one. It’s a glass from the fourth dimension? It has one neck and two bases? I- I have to stop looking at these.
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wir würden die bilder auch gerne verwenden. https://www.alterskompetenzen.info/. erlaubt?
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I see one of the pictures being used over&over again without any comments on the origin… Make a search on Google. This expands way beyond Facebook…
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Clearly the pictures are fake like they said. Before. You have digitsvarting on one . You got one with with an extra arm another with paper hand crinkled.
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I’m real! Real 82, still working, walking, and dancing tango. . . and find these photos grotesque. I am surrounded by lively, animated, vibrant men and women over 80. None look like this. Why not photograph REAL people? These photos are obscene. #thewinthropagreement
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You sad artificial intelligence.
Have you seen Otto Dix?
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