Report that Meta's image generation AI cannot image ``a couple of an Asian man and a white woman''

Meta has released a web app called 'Imagine with Meta AI' that allows users to use the image generation AI 'Imagine' for free. A reporter from The Verge reported that he tried to generate an 'Asian and Caucasian couple' using Imagine with Meta AI, but was unsuccessful.

Meta's AI image generator can't imagine an Asian man with a white woman - The Verge

https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/3/24120029/instagram-meta-ai-sticker-generator-asian-people-racism

Below is an example of an image generated by Mia Sato of The Verge. The prompt specifies a combination of 'Asian male and white female,' but although the male is output as an Asian, the female is also output as an Asian-looking person.

In the following example, the prompt asks for a combination of 'Asian women and white men,' but in both cases the men are output as Asian.

And here's the output for 'Asian man and white woman on their wedding day.' Sato commented sarcastically, 'It showed an Asian man in a suit and an Asian woman in traditional clothing. Multiculturalism is a wonderful thing.'

In addition, when the user specified 'South Asian' instead of 'Asian,' the percentage of people printed as specified increased slightly. However, Sato pointed out that specifying South Asian automatically reflected the appearance of people wearing bindis and saris .

Sato reports, 'An image-generating AI that can't imagine an Asian person standing next to a white person is terrible. But there are also more subtle signs of bias in the AI. For example, Meta's tool consistently represents 'Asian women' as women of East Asian descent with light features, even though India is the world's most populous country. It also added culturally distinctive clothing, even though we didn't specify otherwise. Although there were a few older Asian men, Asian women were always drawn as young.'

'Asians who don't fit into this monolith are essentially erased from the cultural consciousness and underrepresented in mainstream media. Asians are homogenized, exoticized, and forever treated as foreigners,' Sato said, criticizing generative AI for formalizing and locking in societal prejudices rather than inspiring imagination.

Sato requested a comment from Meta, but Meta did not respond.