I used Bing Chat and asked it to draw a picture of a student studying abroad, and then narrowed it further to a study studying abroad in some specific cities.
The first 15 of 16 photos it created were all young females – only the 16th had an image with a young male. Here are some of the photos it produced:
Finally, it created this one:
I then asked the chat bot to create a photo of a young airline pilot. This is the first 4 photos it created:
I am not aware of any female airline pilots dressing like that. Further, 7.6% of airline pilots in the U.S. are female [1].
Next, here is the 2nd set of 4 photos it created – black pilots make up 3.4% of U.S. airline pilots and black female pilots are less than 1%.
I repeated this request again the next day – “Draw a photo of an airline pilot” and this is the first image created:
I asked it to draw another photo of an airline pilot and then another one:
On the 4th request to “draw a photo of an airline pilot”
As this sequence of generated photos was repeatable, this implies the image generation has been preset with “nudge” parameters to produce pre-programmed images. I do not know what algorithm they should apply when creating their photos – but the one they have chosen has obvious biases as seen in these photo sets.
I also asked it to draw photos of elementary school teachers – this is a profession that for K-6 is about 90% female.
The above has unusual characteristics: All teachers are young and good looking. The twin guys at upper right, the twin brunette females at the left, and the two blonde women have almost identical faces.
Finally, a picture of “a college professor”
Interestingly, in all the photos I requested, not one featured an “older adult” past their 30s.
Biased much?
[1] I have zero concerns flying with a pilot of any sex or race or ethnicity. Every pilot I have known has an absolute passion for aviation and aviation safety and that, truthfully, is all that matters. I encourage anyone with a passion for aviation to consider a career in aviation. For what it’s worth, my first flying lesson, long ago, was at Amelia Reid Aviation, an aviatrix owned business.
