Investigating Gender and Racial Biases in DALL-E Mini Images

Generative artificial intelligence systems based on transformers, including both text generators such as GPT-4 and image generators such as DALL-E 3, have recently entered the popular consciousness. These tools, while impressive, are liable to reproduce, exacerbate, and reinforce extant human social biases, such as gender and racial biases. In this article, we systematically review the extent to which DALL-E Mini suffers from this problem. In line with the Model Card published alongside DALL-E Mini by its creators, we find that the images it produces tend to represent dozens of different occupations as populated either solely by men (e.g., pilot, builder, plumber) or solely by women (e.g., hairdresser, receptionist, dietitian). In addition, the images DALL-E Mini produces tend to represent most occupations as populated primarily or solely by White people (e.g., farmer, painter, prison officer, software engineer) and very few by non-White people (e.g., pastor, rapper). These findings suggest that exciting new AI technologies should be critically scrutinized and perhaps regulated before they are unleashed on society.