For Immediate Release:
May 24, 2023
Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382
Portland, Ore. – PETA has teamed up with local artist Shad Clark to create the group’s first AI-generated artwork, which it will use in national campaigns to draw attention to the lifelong health problems faced by breathing-impaired breeds (BIB) such as boxers, bulldogs, and pugs, as well as to the dairy industry’s cruelty in separating cows from their babies in order to steal their milk. All the images—which include an English bulldog in an iron lung—are available here.
“The violence inherent in animal-exploiting industries is gruesome enough for the darkest corners of the internet, and AI can help us see how unnatural this exploitation really is,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges anyone disturbed by these images to alleviate their conscience by going vegan and never buying an animal from a breeder or a pet shop.”
BIBs have shortened lifespans because they’re deliberately bred to have distorted and restricted airways, causing them to pant, snort, wheeze, and struggle just to breathe—all in order to achieve a particular look. Breeding them also exacerbates the homeless-animal crisis, which sees around 70 million companion animals homeless in the U.S. at any given time.
In the dairy industry, beloved calves are torn away from their mothers within a day of birth so the milk meant to nourish them can be sold to humans. Once cows’ bodies wear out after repeated pregnancies, they’re sent to slaughter.
This isn’t the first time PETA has used AI to help make a point. Earlier this year, the group used ChatGPT to create a vegan version of the Bible’s Book of Genesis.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
