Beyond disclosure: stop using AI imagery in global health
Abstract
We commend Arsenii Alenichev and colleagues (November, 2025)1 for diagnosing the rise of “poverty porn 2.0”, which refers to the proliferation of synthetic depictions of human suffering generated by artificial intelligence (AI) across the global health industry. Disclosing the use of AI is necessary, but insufficient. AI imagery operates from a dislocated, disembodied perspective that cannot attend to lived, material realities. Detached from social and material contexts, it perpetuates a regressive visual lexicon of racialised tropes, undermines consent and agency for the people such images claim to portray, and erases the labour and livelihoods of local image makers.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Photography and Visual Culture
Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
Participatory Visual Research Methods
Publication details
- Journal / source
- The Lancet Global Health
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- e332–e332
- Publication date
- 16 February 2026
- Language
- EN