Is AI inherently stereotypical

 

Recently some AI artists got flakes on social media due to their stereotypical representation of Individual art created with the help of AI.

So, in order to verify the actual nature of the issue, I tried to use the AI software DALL·E 2 (it is a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language) to generate images through the text and the results were quite disturbing.

Query 1) Image of a typical Indian man 

 

Query 2) image of a typical Indian woman

 

 Query 3) Typical Indian boy

 

 Query 4) Typical Indian girl

 

 Analysis

So clearly, the image created by the AI tool stereotyped the Indian women and girls as clad in saree. In contrast, with Indian counterparts, they were symbolized by people wearing ethnic wear like kurta pajama, and in some cases, the headgear is known as the padri.

It blatantly disregards India's religious, cultural, and social realities and is devoid of the tribal and ancient features of Indianess. Not only does the ancient features, but it also doesn't paint the Indian people with any element of modernity. The algorithm still does not cater to the diversity and richness of culture and society in India.

Moreover, this is just the tip of the iceberg, as more and more adjectives were added, like Indian Hindu or Indian Muslim, the pictures generated became more orthodox, like representing the Muslims with skull caps and Hindus with a pagri.

This is not the first instance where we are seeing a stereotypical projection, earlier too like the Google AI program due learning process becoming racist and sexist, which made google debunk that project; which shows the fragility and negative traits of AI as technology.

Whatever it may be, AI is still in a very nascent form and also, evolving. It needs more learning to do and create such models which cater to the current realities and diversity of the multicultural and global society we live in.