AI generates mainly White, male chemists

Artificial intelligence image generators have developed a reputation for bias. For instance, Bloomberg reported that when prompted to generate images of different professions, the AI model Stable Diffusion mainly created White men , particularly in higher-paying occupations. Valeria Stepanova, a professor of chemistry at Viterbo University, wanted to know if this observation applied to her scientific discipline. “I’ve always been interested in how diversity is represented in my field,” Stepanova says. So she and her colleagues tested four AI image generators—Adobe Firefly, DALL-E 2, Craiyon, and DreamStudio—providing each with carefully engineered prompts pertaining to chemistry-specific occupations. The researchers then classified the gender and race of 200 AI-generated chemists, giving each an assignment of male or female and identifying each as African American, American Indian, Asian and Pacific Islander, Hispanic, or White. The researchers scanned every image for visible signs of disability. Stepanova and her team found that, together, the AI