What is ChatGPT's viral caricature feature? How to create yours for free; why experts warn that it could be dangerous

Social media thrives on trends that hook us fast, be it the Gibli AI trend or the Nano Banana that wrecked havoc on social media.

This time, the latest trend is that of caricatutres ignited by AI chatbots like ChatGPT, where caricatures blend your photo with job details into colourful avatars.

The Viral AI caricature craze

A hot social media trend has users feeding selfies, company logos, and job info into ChatGPT for custom caricatures that visualise, "everything the AI knows about you."

According to to EuroNews, Cybersecurity pros caution this gives fraudsters goldmines. Bob Long, VP at Daon, warns, “You are doing fraudsters’ work for them - giving them a visual representation of who you are”.

He flags the prompt's wording as suspicious, “sounds like it was intentionally started by a fraudster looking to make the job easy”

Hidden dangers of uploaded images

Once uploaded, photos get scanned for emotions, backgrounds, or locations.

OpenAI may retain them to train models, as per their privacy policy, which is not dumped publicly, but patterned for refinements. A breach could leak faces tied to roles, enabling deepfakes or scam profiles. Charlotte Wilson of Check Point says, “Selfies help criminals move from generic scams to personalised, high-conviction impersonation."

How not to fall prey to frauds related to these

Experts advise to crop the image uploaded for caricature creation well, tight plain backgrounds, no badges, lanyards, or employer hints. Wilson says to the EuroNews, “Crop tightly, keep the background plain, and do not include badges, uniforms, work lanyards, location clues or anything that ties you to an employer or a routine.” Skip prompts naming jobs, cities, or firms.
Opt out via OpenAI's privacy portal, toggle “do not train on my content” and “improve the mode.

How to create caricature images for free?

Take realism up a notch, ask the AI to craft a photo so lifelike it feels like a real snapshot of your workspace, by using a simple prompt, "Make a super-detailed photo of what you think my desk looks like right now. Throw in hints about my job and my messy habits."