Meta AI is obsessed with turbans when generating images of Indian men | TechCrunch
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Bias in AI image generators is a well-studied and well-reported phenomenon, but consumer tools continue to exhibit glaring cultural biases. The latest
  • SavedKriss@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    What a surprise! A traditional outfit appears statistically significant to a large statistical model and shows more frequently. What a novel finding. I’m flabbergasted! What will be next? CEOs in jacket and tie? Dogs with fur? Why my 512x512 picture of a Inuit in a snowfield doesn’t portrait the subject wearing a bikini? Why can’t meta read my mind? WHY, MARK? WHHHHY?

    • 0x0@programming.devEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      A traditional outfit

      How traditional? How statistically relevant is it? Most Indians i know do not wear turbans at all.

      If these stats are trustworthy (and i think they are), the only Indians that wear turbans are Sikhs (1.7%) and Muslims (14.2%). I’d say 15.9% is not statistically significant.

      • rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        Imagine a German man from Bavaria… You just thought of a man wearing Lederhosen and holding a beer, didn’t you? Would you be surprised if I told you that they usually don’t look like that outside of a festival?

      • catsarebadpeople@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        I think you’re looking at it wrong. The prompt is to make an image of someone who is recognizable as Indian. The turban is indicative clothing of that heritage and therefore will cause the subject to be more recognizable as Indian to someone else. The current rate at which Indian people wear turbans isn’t necessarily the correct statistic to look at.

        What do you picture when you think, a guy from Texas? Are they wearing a hat? What kind? What percentage of Texans actually wear that specific hat that you might be thinking of?

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          A surprising number of Texans wear cowboy and trucker hats (both stereotypical). A surprising number of Indians don’t wear turbans since it’s by far a minority.

  • gerryflap@feddit.nlEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Kinda makes sense though. I’d expect images where it’s actually labelled as “an Indian person” to actually over represent people wearing this kind of clothing. An image of an Indian person doing something mundane in more generic clothing is probably more often than not going to be labelled as “a person doing X” rather than “An Indian person doing X”. Not sure why these authors are so surprised by this