Meta’s AI Image Generator Faces Backlash Over Racial Bias Concerns
Meta’s highly anticipated AI image generator, released in December, is facing criticism for its difficulty in creating images of couples or friends from different racial backgrounds. The tool came under fire after CNN prompted it to create images of interracial couples, only to find errors such as generating images of same-race couples instead.
The issue was first highlighted by tech news outlet The Verge, which reported that the AI image generator was unable to create an image of an Asian man with a White wife or an interracial couple when prompted by CNN. In response, Meta referred to a company blog post on reducing bias in generative AI features.
This is not the first time that generative AI tools have come under fire for racial biases. Incidents such as Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s Dall-E have also faced criticism, with researchers warning that tools trained on online data have the potential to replicate racial biases at a larger scale.
Despite promises of generative AI’s potential, tech giants’ attempts to address racial biases in AI tools have backfired, raising questions about whether these tools are ready for widespread use. Critics are calling for more transparency and accountability in the development and use of AI tools to ensure that they do not perpetuate racial biases in society.
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