Category Archives: Hair Transplant

Artificial Intelligence, Bing Image Creator, ChatGPT, Hair Transplant

Fake Hair Transplant Before and After Photos Using AI

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Hair Transplant Front Before After AI Photo
Hair transplant in the front (two separate photos). Generated by AI using Bing Image Creator and DALL-E.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all the rage in 2023. This is entirely due to the release of the ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) chatbot from OpenAI in November 2022. Most people seem to already be impressed with this technology in its first iteration.

At the time of release, ChatGPT was based on OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 language model and only included information and data through 2021. This was since supplemented with the latest GPT-4 language model that was released on March 14, 2023.

Moreover, after Microsoft Bing added ChatGPT into its new search engine (only available on the Edge browser), the chatbot’s data includes the latest information from 2023. When used inside Bing, the chatbot also cites sources and references that it finds from the Bing search engine.

As the AI chatbot plus search engine battle accelerates, Alphabet (via Google) launched its own new Bard chatbot and Baidu (China) launched Ernie. Google is being more cautious with Bard in comparison to Microsoft with ChatGPT. It would be ironic if the global dangers of AI (and personal data collection) are ultimately in the hands of the Bing, Google and Baidu search engines.

Everything is moving at breakneck speed, although I am not one to trust AI content without detailed verification on my part. On a related note, check out my 2021 post on Alphabet-owned DeepMind’s Alphafold protein database; and my 2022 post on artificial intelligence and drug discovery.

Bing Image Creator Just Launched

I was initially planning to write a post on ChatGPT and how it responds to questions related to hair loss. However, then something even more interesting happened:

On March 21, 2023 Bing launched the groundbreaking Bing Image Creator. It is powered by DALL-E, also from OpenAI.

The old adage is now updated:

“A (fake AI-created) picture is worth a thousand words.”

As Deepfake voice and video artificial intelligence technology continues improving, perhaps someone will create a new adage:

“A (fake AI-created) video is worth a thousand pictures.”

Fake AI Generated Hair Transplant Before and After Photos

Over the years, I have seen numerous examples of hair transplant clinics using before and after patient photos from other clinics as their own. It is an epidemic according to some surgeons. Even when it comes to my own site, I regularly find other spammy sites plagiarizing and scraping my photos, logos, images and content.

But now we have Bing Image Creator that is free to use. No need to plagiarize photos from other people anymore. Moreover, other AI image creation software products (not free) such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion already became popular in 2022.

The quality of these images is still subpar on some occasions. e.g., the below are two of the four images I got generated for “hair transplant before and after“. It seems like the AI prefers hair transplant results on the rear of the head for some reason! And it often puts the after result first, followed by the before.

Hair Transplant Before After AI Image
Hair transplant before after AI image using Bing Image Creator.

However, I have no doubt whatsoever that it is only a short time before these fake AI generated images become undetectable from the real thing. All of these technologies are constantly learning and self-improving from user feedback.

Moreover, if you vary the query in Bing Image Creator, the photos can become at least somewhat believable. At the very top of this post is one with the query “hair transplant in the front.”

Below are two results for the query “FUE hair transplant.”

FUE Hair Transplant AI Image
FUE hair transplant artificial intelligence Images.

To me, both of the above images seem like they are of real human scalps. Quite amazing if you are someone who is older than 30 years old in my opinion. Google was only founded in 1998, and the internet only started to became popular in the mid-1990s. Smartphones and faster speed internet access are yet more recent.

Inevitably, we will see numerous hair transplant surgeons and hair loss product developers use such “fake” photos. It will become impossible to discern truth from fiction. I would not be surprised if even some clinical trial before and after photos turn out to be doctored ones in the future.

Buyer beware (Caveat Emptor) is truer then ever before.

Hair Transplant Surgeons, Hair Transplant

Hair Transplant Surgeons who also had Hair Transplants

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Around 15 years ago, I started bookmarking hair transplant surgeon websites if it was mentioned that the surgeon had also undergone a hair transplant. I find it reassuring that there are so many hair transplant surgeons who have also had hair transplants themselves.

A select few of them have before and after photos on their sites as evidence. Some only briefly point out the fact in their webpage text. Some used to mention their own hair transplant experiences, but later on removed the information during site updates.

As is the case with hair transplant patients, many surgeons likely prefer not posting personal before and after photos online. I would not be surprised if a majority of hair transplant surgeons in the world had at least once tried a small-scale procedure on their own scalp.

It seems like a lot of hair transplant surgeons got passionate about the subject of hair restoration in the first place due to their own hair loss. I will update the below list (first posted in 2014) every few years. If you know of any names that I may have missed, please post them in the comments section.

Hair Transplant Surgeons who had Hair Transplants Themselves

Dr. David Perez-Meza — Confirmed to me on Twitter.

Dr. Ken Williams — Info now gone from his site. From my notes, it seems like he had a  NeoGraft FUE per his older website.

Dr. Michael Beehner — There used to be some great before and after pictures in the right column.

Dr. Christopher Pawlinga — According to the text on his latest site, he is a hair transplant recipient. On his old site, it mentioned that his partner at the time (Dr. Beehner) did his hair transplant in 1994.

Dr. Bradley Wolf — Was operated upon by the well known and highly respected surgeon Dr. Ron Shapiro. Dr. Wolf told me this when I met him once. Unfortunately, his website no longer has the before and after photos that it used to have.

Dr. John Satino — He mentioned this to me over the phone. He had a number of scalp reductions and hair transplants decades ago from the famous Dr. Constantine Chambers. Today, in his late 70s, Dr. Satino still has great hair per the photo of him on his website.

Dr. Robert Jones — One of the case studies on his old homepage entailed his own hair transplant. He also wrote some interesting blog posts related to his own hair restoration procedures.

Dr. Gary Hitzig — His old site used to have that information. It seems like he no longer has a website and might have retired.

Dr. Matt Leavitt — Founder of MHR (now merged with Bosley). His old site used to have his before and after photos.

Dr. John Gillespie — Used to mention it on his old site.

Dr. Richard Rogers — Used to mentions it.

Dr. Alan Feller — His old site used to have that information.

Dr. Robert Haber — I think his old site used to have that info based on my bookmark. I also met him once and he told me that he had a hair transplant in the past.

Dr. Robert Dorin — His partner Dr. Robert True performed his hair transplant.

Dr. William Rassman — His blog post describes his crown hair transplant.

Dr. Jerry Cooley — I think his old site used to have that info based on my bookmark.

Dr. Brian Goertz — I met him in person once to get a Proscar prescription and he showed me his before and after photos.

Dr. Dan McGrath — Great before and after photo.

Dr. William Yates — His own hair transplant made a big difference in his confidence and life per his old site. A rare testimonial from an African American who hated his hair loss. He also got some beard hair to head transplants from Dr. John Cole.

Dr. William Reed — Mentions that he got two hair transplantation procedures in 1994.

Dr. Marc Dauer — I think his old site used to have that info based on my bookmark.

Dr. Raghu Reddy — Used to have an excellent write-up with photos of his own experience with hair loss; a bad first hair transplant (including shock loss); and a good second FUE hair transplant by his own technician.

Dr. Ken Washenik — Mentioned in the linked wired.com article. He is among the five most cited hair loss spokespersons in the world.

Dr. Bessam Farjo — Scroll down the page for his thoughts on his unsuccessful hair transplants with old technology.

Dr. Alan Bauman’s Father — Dr. Bauman might never need a hair transplant himself, but he did operate on his father with great results.

Dr. Paul Spano — Mentioned it on an older site.

Dr. Bernard Arocha — Thank you to commentator “Dan” for telling me.

Dr. Robert Leonard — In August 2014, after I wrote this post, Dr. Leonard posted photos on Twitter of his hair transplant. His partner Dr. Matthew Lopresti performing an FUE hair transplant on him using the ARTAS robot.

Dr. Michael Vories — Mentions that he was a hair transplant patient prior to becoming a surgeon.

Dr. Paul Cotterill — I read about him having had a hair transplant on a forum. Not disclosed anywhere on his site.

Dr. James Harris — A 2016 article on him mentions that he has had a hair transplant.

Dr. Resul Yaman — On his site it says “he had his hair transplantation surgery in 2007”.

Dr. Paul Rose — Based on information I received from one of his colleagues.

Joseph Greco — Based on information I received from one of his colleagues.

Dr. Dominic Brandy — Based on information I received from one of his colleagues. Dr. Brandy largely focuses on cosmetic surgery these days.

Dr. David Josephitis — Based on information I received from one of his colleagues.

Dr. Jeffrey Epstein — Based on information I received from one of his colleagues.