Australian Story: May 6

Australian Story profiles modelling agent Chelsea Bonner, daughter of Skippy star Tony Bonner, who has been at the forefront of the fight to change perceptions of beauty.

As the daughter of Tony Bonner, who played Jerry the helicopter pilot in Skippy, Chelsea grew up in a family where both parents were revered for their looks.

Australian Story first met Chelsea in 2017 when, as a modelling agent, she was fighting to change the industry to be more inclusive.

Having achieved that, Chelsea is now taking on an even bigger battle – artificial intelligence – where algorithms are creating fake models and alarming beauty standards.

“I really feel like AI has taken us back 20 years, it’s a cataclysmic step backwards in time,” Chelsea says.

In the course of her research, Chelsea immersed herself into the world of AI. The more she investigated the more horrified she became. Billions of images of women being scraped from the internet and fed through algorithms to create unrealistic perceptions of beauty. Brands using computer generated ‘people’ to sell clothes – doing away with paid models, photographers, and make-up artists. Porn sites posting images of real faces on fake bodies.

“It’s not only going to crush our industry, but it’s actually just going to crush the trust of the general public in what they’re seeing. You can’t trust any image,” Chelsea says.

Chelsea has been joined by Australian supermodel Robyn Lawley and journalist Tracey Spicer in petitioning the federal government for greater regulations to protect creative industries and ordinary Australians.

“Everybody is affected by this,” Chelsea says.

8pm Monday on ABC.