Why Is AI Inserting The Phrase 'Ethnically Ambiguous' Into AI-Generated Images? Racial Bias In AI Art Explained

AI Art has developed at a rapid pace over the course of 2023, going from the primordial images churned out by DALL-E mini to the slick product now accessible through programs like Bing Image Creator. But amidst a growing trend where users attempt to create comics using AI technology, some people are noting a bizarre tendency displayed by several AI programs; the insertion of the phrase "ethnically ambiguous" into completely unrelated images.

Here's a recap of why some people think AI engineers are trying to compensate for inadequate AI training data by forcing random prompts to include racially "ambiguous" terms, oftentimes to hilarious effect.

What Is The Controversy Surrounding AI Art And Racial Bias?

AI image generators have been accused of functioning on biased and incomplete training data, causing the machine to churn out racially insensitive or misogynistic images. In various instances covered by Business Insider, the Washington Post and NPR, AI image creators like DALL-E3, Stable Diffusion, and Bing Image Creator have been accused of depicting CEOs as white men over 90% of the time, only showing light-skinned people for the prompt "Attractive People," and even refusing to show Black African doctors treating white children.

When Did People First Notice The Term 'Ethnically Ambiguous' Appearing In Their AI Art?

In early October 2023, X user @lovecrypt noted that an AI-generated image had the phrase "ethnically ambiguous" tacked onto it. They wrote, " >you can literally see the prompt-injected "ethnically ambiguous" tag in the image"

The same user went on to say, "Imagine becoming an AI developer, attempting to change the world with technology, and instead of just writing better code you decide to add the words "ethnically ambiguous" to every user prompt." Around the same time, more people began posting AI-generated images that contained the peculiarly out-of-place phrase.

So Why Did AI Systems Start Including The Phrase "Ethnically Ambiguous" In Every Other Photo?

Turns out, X user @lovecrypt may have been right about AI engineers compensated for skewed data sets by forcing prompts to include randomized racial terms, as seen in a post by X user @neilkli, where they write, "if you tell the bing AI to make a cartoon with a caption, but don't tell it what to put in the caption, it usually chooses the name of a race, which is cool."

if you tell the bing AI to make a cartoon with a caption, but don't tell it what to put in the caption, it usually chooses the name of a race, which is cool pic.twitter.com/gURa1otPjm

— bert derner (@neilkli) October 4, 2023

The realization led to people sharing even more images with strange racial terms appearing in them, like this Drake-themed comic posted by @StyledApe and a Black Homer Simpson shared by @DerekPutin.

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For the full history of ethnically ambiguous AI prompt injection, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.