The Olympics have come under fire for apparently using AI to animate a mascot of their Youth Olympic event in 2026, despite having children submit designs.
Mascots for Olympic events are something that stick in the mind for everyone. Their unique designs typically spark conversations, both good and bad, but they at least represent something about the host city.
The design process for mascots can be pretty lengthy ones, sometimes involving community submissions for ideas. This has been the case of the 2026 Youth Olympics in Dakar, Senegal, with two designs from 16-year-olds being selected.
Ayo is the mascot that has been born out of the designs, but the Olympics have come under fire for seemingly using AI, artificial intelligence to actually illustrate the mascot.
As per the Olympics’ post on November 1, Ayo was created by two 16-year-olds – Ndeye Mariama Diop designed the character, while Ndeye Khady Kristall Coumbassa named it as such. Though the final product has been slammed on social media for some apparent AI artistry.
“Promoting creativity” yet you took a young man’s design and ran it through the ai sloppifier 3000,” one said. “The kid’s design looked better than the AI slop you turned it into,” another added.
“Y’all better delete this slop immediately. there was EFFORT in the first pic. Disgusting thing you did there,” commented another. “With the amount of money you make, you can’t pay an artist? for real?” asked another.
The Olympics did note that some parts of Ayo’s introductory video included AI-generated images. However, they haven’t cleared up if the mascot was generated by artificial intelligence or an artist.
Negative comments have continued to rain down on the games’ posts, with many claiming the original design was “so much better” than what was actually produced.
“The original design has so much life in it, what happened?” another chimed in.
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