Obsession with the Body and Distressed Subjectivities in the Era of AI and Computer Generated Influencers

Abstract

The cult of the body among women and men who share sexually suggestive content on the digital space and market therefore their body as their sole source of income illustrates the extent to which the body has become an obsession. Drawing on phenomenology which regards the body as a medium we utilize to interact with the real world, when the medium is fully operational, it retreats to the background and becomes transparent. Nonetheless, the moment the medium is dysfunctional, it occupies the central focus of consciousness. Accordingly, this article advances two principal arguments: First, this commodification of the body showcases the conflictual relation subjects are experiencing with their bodies and with their complex realities. Second, with the arrival of Artificial Intelligence, the transcendence of the body and its substitution with computer generated influencers (CGIs), is detrimental to these ordinary people who have been using their bodies as an exchange value to seek emancipation from the alienating effects of capitalism.