TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Generative AI is a powerful tool that can make it easier for people to intentionally spread mis- or disinformation through altered words, photos, video, or audio.
But AI can also be used to explore ideas and present an unbiased point of view of view of a given topic. That’s exactly what a team of programmers sought to accomplish when generating an assortment of ‘politician’ portraits based on one simple command.
The images were created using the artificial intelligence tool Midjourney, a program similar in concept to OpenAI’s tool, Chat GPT. Users can input a text description, called a “prompt,” and receive an image file in return.
Simple prompts such as “photo of Florida politician” were used to generate the following images.
AI generated image of a Florida ‘politician’ (Credit: betonline) 
AI generated image of a California ‘politician’ (Credit: betonline) 
AI generated image of a New York ‘politician’ (Credit: betonline) 
AI generated image of a Texas ‘politician’ (Credit: betonline) 
AI generated image of a Hawaiian ‘politician’ (Credit: betonline) 
AI generated image of a Georgia ‘politician’ (Credit: betonline) 
AI generated image of a Alabama ‘politician’ (Credit: betonline)
Most of the AI-generated images depicted a middle-aged or older white male. However, the tool did occasionally generate a woman or person of color seemingly based on the state and its regional location.
The AI tool also appeared to follow regional stereotypes such as generating a cowboy hat atop a Texas politician, or a lei around the neck of a Hawaiian “politician.”
It is important to note that none of the portraits in this article are of real people.
