Imagination of humanity’s future: representation and comparison of female cyborg images in generative AI paintings

This article explores the representation of the female image in the visual artwork of generative AI and the gender issues in it, using eight different generative AI systems, ERNIE-ViLG 2.0, Shuhua, and Yihui from China and Nightcafe, Fotor, Jasper Art, DALLE and Deep dream generator from the West, as comparative cases. In this paper, female cyborg is selected as a representative of female images, using the theoretical framework of posthumanism. This paper first provides research background about generative AI and cyborg. By inputting the same text in these eight generative AI systems, this paper obtains 107 images in different scenarios of basic images, home, work, and fighting. By comparing and analysing these images horizontally and vertically, this paper explores how Chinese and Western generative AI systems perceive female cyborg. In conclusion, by choosing female cyborg as a representation of the female figure, this paper explores how generative AI imagines the future of humanity and how this imagination echoes with the human imagination in a paradoxical way.