South Carolina mother ‘grossed out’ after finding an AI-generated photo of what her 6-year-old daughter might look like after 19 years, asks, ‘Can we at least leave their imaginations alone?’

Nikki Anderson, a 32-year-old South Carolina mother, is in disbelief and furious after finding out an AI-generated photo of what her 6-year-old daughter might look like at 25 years old. The image showed a grown-up version of the kid, dressed as a nurse, with a stethoscope around her neck, the same profession she wanted to pursue.

“She is a small human who is literally capable of imagining an entire independent future inside her own head, she said, finding it very ‘cool’ in an Instagram post with multiple slides, which got viral.

“My initial reaction was - Am I allowed to be grossed out about this? I am grossed out about this,” she said to People Magazine in an interview. “Did a teacher really upload my daughter’s photo somewhere to make this, knowing what we know about AI?”


The daughter, named Harper, by the outlet also says, with the AI-generated image, a handmade drawing of her in construction paper was there.

“I was honestly in disbelief,” she says, fearing the algorithm's interpretation of what a successful adult woman should look like. In the Instagram post, she also shared her frustration, writing, “Can we at least leave their imaginations alone?”

“Why do adults feel the need to insert a multibillion dollar industry into something children already do better than us? To what? Make it more impressive? More marketable? More worth looking at?,” the Instagram post further reads.

When Anderson asked Harper more about her drawing, the 6-year-old was actually excited about the AI photo.

“She said that she loved the picture because she had straight and wavy hair and that is what she always wanted, and she hopes she would be that beautiful when she grows up, but she said that it was just a guess so there’s a chance that ‘I won’t look like that…I hope I do,’ ” Anderson recalls, as quoted by People magazine.

Anderson also posed a question on how schools are using images of students without parental consent. “Children cannot meaningfully consent to this sort of use; I think our children deserve protection, not only of their image, but of their minds,” she adds.

She actually took her concerns to the school and asked for clarification on this. “I want to believe that the people that are so dedicated to our children’s future and growth genuinely want what’s best for our children. Hoping we can all learn and adapt. That’s one of the things I respect most about educators,” she told the outlet.

Meanwhile, she’s still waiting for a response from the principal and school board members, which can help to “develop meaningful safeguards” on AI.