Generative AI can not generate its way out of prejudice

The concept of "generative" suggests that the tool can produce what it is asked to produce. In a study uncovering how stereotypical global health tropes are embedded in AI image generators, researchers found it challenging to generate images of Black doctors treating white children. They used Midjourney, a tool that after hundreds of attempts would not generate an output matching the prompt. I tried their experiment with Stable Diffusion's free web version and found it every bit as concerning as you might imagine.

https://axbom.com/generative-prejudice/

#AIEthics #DigitalEthics
Generative AI can not generate its way out of prejudice

The concept of "generative" suggests that the tool can produce what it is asked to produce. In a study uncovering how stereotypical global health tropes are embedded in AI image generators, researchers found it challenging to generate images of Black doctors treating white children. They used Midjourney, a tool that

Axbom
@axbom great post! But there's a typo, 'sex' for six
@mia Thanks, fixed it now in the online version (it went out as a newsletter as well 😅)

This is a typo that several people have reached out about now, haha.
@axbom I guess it's one way of seeing if people are paying attention!

@axbom

This is what I got from Adobe Firefly. It took one prompt revision and all of about 15 seconds.

@sy Thanks, would it be okay to add this as a comment to the post?

It's good to give the complete picture of how different tools will fare on different prompts. The uncertainty of what tool will be able to do what is an important insight.
@axbom Yes, that would be fine. The original prompt came up with non-white kids and a black doctor (so not entirely unproblematic), so I was a bit more specific with the prompt and got this image (so also not a challenge).
@sy Is the image description the prompt you used?
@axbom I think it was 'black doctor treating blonde European child hospital' (the first prompt gave me leafy outdoor settings)
@sy
No child looks so happy when visiting the doctor 😆
@axbom