AI images of poverty used in charity campaigns

Technology Oct 21, 2025

Charities are now using AI-generated images to help raise money, showing dramatic—but entirely fake—scenes of poverty and crisis.
The idea is to avoid the costs and privacy issues of real photos, but this trend, sometimes called "poverty porn 2.0," is raising eyebrows about how honest and ethical it really is.

AI images of poverty used in charity campaigns

Researchers like Arsenii Alenichev have spotted over 100 AI-made images used by groups such as Plan International and the United Nations to highlight issues like child marriage and sexual violence.
Alenichev points out the irony of using high-tech tools—often linked to inequality—to represent suffering, and questions whether these digital images truly help or just distract from real-world problems.