Featured Image Credit: Reddit/r/midjourney
From beauty contests to Elon Musk’s humanoid robots, AI has been moving mad recently. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down anytime soon.
We all can be prone to stereotyping. Maybe when you think of an American, they’re wearing a cowboy hat and eating a cheeseburger for example. Well, it turns out AI is no better than humans when it comes to nations’ stereotypes.
Back in 2023, a Reddit user asked AI to generate images of the ‘most stereotypical person in [country]’ and people were pretty offended by the results.
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Let’s start with Sweden. According to AI, a stereotypical Swedish person has ice-blonde hair, slicked back and perfectly straight, flawless tanned skin and has a chiselled jawline. They also wear a bright blue suit, yellow tie combo. Wonder where they got those colours from…
Next, let’s take it to Italy. To AI, the stereotypical Italian man is sat outside a restaurant, in a tweed jacket, green waistcoat and flat cap, teamed with black round glasses and one hell of a moustache beard combo. And of course, he’s sat in front of a classic pizza and what appears to be a brown onion. Don’t all Italians carry an onion at all times?
And onto France, can you guess any of the traits? Beret, moustache, small round glasses and a bow tie. Oh, and they’re standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, duh.
Now let’s get onto the good old English, shall we?
Flat cap, tweed jacket, knitted vest complete with a pink tie. Plus he seems to be holding what we can only assume is a piping hot cup of tea. And to be honest an English person they may have got the tea part right.
Quite a few Reddit users voiced their offence at the images. One said ‘As a Finn, I find this really inaccurate’ he went on to joke ‘our mushroom pineapple moss hats are not that tall’.
Another wrote: “Why is the Danish guy dressed like he is homeless?”
A third added, ‘as a German I find this thoroughly not accurate’.
‘Why does Norway look like Borat’ a fourth user commented.
And a fifth simply questioned ‘are you alright Netherlands?’.
I mean, the creator asked for stereotypes, and they got just that, but that didn’t stop people sharing their fury in the comments. Some have also called out the AI for sexism — there are no women whatsoever included in the selection.
It might be the future, but AI has a few things to clear up first.
