Earlier this month, Buzzfeed created AI (Artificial Intelligence) Barbies from 195 countries.
What started out as an innocent play on the excitable Barbie movie and trendy AI-image-creating software, the article went viral for all the wrong reasons. It created quite a stir, citing AI bias, cultural inaccuracies and the white-washing of the re-imagined characters from various countries. The article has now been removed.
Middle Eastern and African users were particularly enraged, saying that the AI Barbies were simply depicting stereotypes.
lebanon barbie in middle of debris, south sudanese barbie with a gun, non european barbies with eurocentric features, AI has always been racist and propogates stereotypes, be very VERY aware of it https://t.co/yHNIWeNFe7
— Dev (@daniversulk) July 10, 2023
One Twitter user pointed out that Kuwait’s AI Barbie was clad in men’s attire:
This is men’s attire, at least do your research 🙄🙄 pic.twitter.com/bAztDtaoMX
— سـارّة 🫧🪼 (@xSarouna) July 8, 2023
Another Twitter user pointed out how the AI Barbie was given a gun:
THEY GAVE SOUTH SUDAN BARBIE A GUN pic.twitter.com/buhOrzxjAc
— Wagatwe Wanjuki 🇰🇪 🇧🇸 (@wagatwe) July 8, 2023
Here’s what African AI Barbies look like:
South Africa
Zimbabwe
Zambia
Uganda
While it may be true that the AI images do, in fact, portray stereotypes, it is also not the fault of Amy Glover, the composer of the article, nor is it the fault of Buzzfeed.
There is a bigger conversation that needs to be had about AI and what information machine-learning technologies need to incorporate to deliver more accurate and less offensive products.
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FASHION ED’S PICK: 4 of Margot Robbie’s best Barbie premiere looks
Feature image: Amy Glover / Midjourney
