The Perils of AI and the Glamour Photo

I needed a new glamour photo for the blog and for those instances when I am a guest on someone else’s podcast and they need a current image of me. I’ve recently lost 25 lbs in response to the onset of old man health issues—I am fine, just a bit more svelte. Not only did I need new pants (suspenders are out), but I needed a picture which actually looks like the new me.

I was recently a guest on the Abiding Grace Radio’s (AGR) live podcast recording at Christ Reformed Church (May 1, 2026), in which we discussed Israel and the Antichrist. We had a blast! The AGR radio program is now serializing that live recording, and in the first installment used an old White Horse Inn publicity photo which still appears in Google photo searches. I was badly in need of a haircut when that picture was taken, and admittedly, I look pretty scruffy. This never worked as a glamour photo . . .

So, when the AGR folks prepared their second installment for that series, I got a kick out of the fact that they too must have thought I needed “spiffing up” and came up with an AI image of me making me look ten years younger than I am. But I would never wear that tie with a striped shirt! I’m an old school oxford-cloth, button down collar, sort of guy. And isn’t it a bit ironic that in an episode in which we talked about the Antichrist, and briefly touched on AI, that an AI image of me appears.

The first time I was AI’d was as a guest for a Spanish Language podcast several years ago. The AI image does sort of look like me, but is kinda creepy—as if I were my own younger brother if I had one.

But I shouldn’t complain too much. Someone tried to contemporize B. B. Warfield, giving him a modern appearance. But he looks more like a hipster megachurch pastor than the “Lion of Princeton.”

Oh, the perils of AI and the glamour photo . . .