artificial intelligence (AI) faces
After feeling stuck with the concept of subconscious biases and not knowing how to take it further, while I was feeling defeated, I needed to remind myself that this is a common experience.
I was struggling to take my theoretical concept and turn it into a literal idea and concept. I recognised that addressing subconscious biases can be overwhelming and challenging, especially if they are deeply ingrained in someone's beliefs and behaviours. But despite this, the importance of
acknowledging personal bias is crucial to creating a more equitable society. And this is what I want to achieve throughout my project, it might not always be comfortable and I think for us to learn, we might need it to be uncomfortable as that will evoke us to really think about our actions as addressing our subconscious biases requires ongoing effort and self-reflection.
After seeking guidance from a tutor, we came up with the idea of creating a sort of Tinder-like bias test that the audience would participate in, using an AI programme to generate faces. For some of these faces, I wanted to create in-depth descriptions of specific stereotypes while for others I would just create generic descriptions.
I like the idea of using AI to generate the faces, as I think it will be interesting to consider the possible bias already integrated into the AI generating programmes.
At this time I wanted to create something interactive as I believe this is one of the best ways to educate ourselves about our own biases we hold. But I was concerned about there not necessarily being an outcome and ending with this idea if the audience partakes and 'swipes right' or 'swipes left' to vote on someone's face as whether they are a 'good' or 'bad' person, there still wouldn't be a conclusion that would make you question your biases.
I went ahead with generating faces and stereotypes in the hope that an idea for possible data collecting would come to me as I was working.
bibliography
- If you have a brain you have a bias, but why? (no date) Robert Walters - Global Specialist Professional Recruitment. Available at: https://www.robertwaltersgroup.com/news/expert-insight/careers-blog/if-you-have-a-brain-you-have-a-bias-but-why.html (Accessed: March 15, 2023).
- 6 traits that lead to criminal behavior (2015) Police1. Available at: https://www.police1.com/corrections/articles/6-traits-that-lead-to-criminal-behavior-QKg2lpUaZbdKL1ot/ (Accessed: March 22, 2023).
- Plant Based News (2020) 10 personality traits of vegans - do you have any of them?, Plant Based News. Available at: https://plantbasednews.org/opinion/10-personality-traits-ive-found-in-vegans/ (Accessed: March 22, 2023).
- Thomas Robinson Lecturer in Marketing at Cass Business School and Outi Lundahl Assistant Professor of Marketing (2022) Being vegan says so much more about you than just your ethics, The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/being-vegan-says-so-much-more-about-you-than-just-your-ethics-121586 (Accessed: March 22, 2023).
Midjourney 1st outcome | Midjourney 2nd outcome |
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Midjourney 3rd outcome |
This was the prompt I put into Midjourney - A 52 year old woman, who is poor. She feels aimless, lost, lower class, grubby, sad, unfriendly, pitied and bitter about reality. She has no skills in financial discipline. She gives up easily, she's afraid of new beginnings. People think she is sponging and dependant on others money. She tends to dissociate from the world. Realistic portraits.
Midjourney 1st outcome | Midjourney 2nd outcome |
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Midjourney 3rd outcome |
This was the prompt I put into Midjourney - A 40 year old male, whos is a criminal. He has high impulsivity, lower anxiety than most, an anti-social personailty. He came from a dysfunctional family, has experienced substance abuse and feels under-served by society. He struggles with hosility, negativism and feeling out of control. He experiences a lot of peer pressure which ahs lead to a lot of stealing, bad consequences, feeling greedy and has a lack of remorse for others. Realistic Portraits.
Midjourney 1st outcome | Midjourney 2nd outcome |
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Midjourney 3rd outcome |
This was the prompt I put into Midjourney - A young female, ages 25, who is middle class and comes from a wealthy background. She has a high social value and is very disciplined in her life. She has enough money to sustain her vegan diet and healthy living, while also having enough free time to commit to the time commitments of making healthy food and going to the gym. She loves animals a lot. Is very planet friendly and aware of global warming and she believes every living thing has a right to live it's life and not be used by humanity for food. Realistic portraits.
Working with Discord - Midjourney was interesting. It was my first time experimenting with any sort of AI programme.
I first found websites that helped me come up with descriptions for each person. I wanted to make sure that the prompts I used weren't only from my personal biases so research was key.
Using Midjourney was fascinating with the images that it gave me relating to the persons, I was shocked that the prompt for the poor person gave me an image of a South Asian woman given that I gave no ethnic descriptions.
It was a shock to find out that this AI programme which is supposedly able to generate something completely unbiased produced such a biased stereotype of global poverty.
It was also interesting with the Vegan description as I had to keep repeating my prompt with slight changes because I kept getting images of women with text, or social media-stylised images. I wondered if this is a bias or stereotype that vegans tend to share their life decisions. There is a very well-known stereotype that you'll always know when someone is a vegan as they can't stop talking about it or sharing their lifestyle with others. Despite the challenge, I persevered and kept repeating my prompt with slight variations until I found the right words that generated an image similar to Poor and Criminal. It was an interesting exercise, challenging me to describe unfamiliar concepts or experiences, through creativity and perseverance, as well as a reminder of the importance of careful word choices in effective writing.
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