Huh? chatGPT unable to deal with a request for plus-size couple
I gave chatGPT a cute but basic picture of my husband and I and asked it to create a digital version of us looking cozy. The picture it gave me back was cute enough, but I felt the representations of us didn’t quite hit the mark because… well, we are fat, and the digital characters it made were not!
So, I kindly asked chatGPT to recreate the picture but make us plus-sized, “We are both plus size! Try again?” Error message: “I ran into some issues generating the updated image, so I wasn’t able to create it this time. Let me know if you’d like me to try again with a different approach!”
I tried again, “Can you try again and make us both plus size?” Huh! Another error, this time more specific! “I ran into issues again generating the updated image with plus-size representation. It seems like the tool is having trouble with this request. If you'd like, I can try a different approach or help edit an existing image to match your vision. Let me know how you'd like to proceed!”
What in the world?!
So, I started from a different entry point. I provided this simple prompt, “Could you create a cozy scene with a fat man and fat woman enjoying each other's company?” and it gave me the final picture you see on this page. Something curious, however, was that it changed the language. I intentionally used the word fat, but in its caption, it reverted to the description “plus size.” That tells me that it seems to realize these words are interchangeable yet its ability was limited with one word choice (that it chose to use) and not with the other.
This experience has captured my attention and piqued my interest. Does this AI think that I would prefer a skinnier version of us? Did it think skinny was better than fat? Or did it just simply not know how to handle my prompt?
I’m not going to come to any concrete solutions yet as this is the only time I have asked it to create fat/plus-size humans, but like I said - I’m curious now. I will be continuing to test its ability to create well-rounded (hee!) people, especially when given well-rounded inspo!
Representation is important. My standards are high…. even with the bots!
Have you ever given a request to AI that has stumped it? Especially related to representation, inclusion, and/or diversity?
Stay cozy, curious, and represented,
Erika
This is the photo I gave it.
This is what it gave me back. Cute, but lacking our “fluff!”
My prompt for this one was, “Could you create a cozy scene with a fat man and fat woman enjoying each other's company? It seemed to handle it fine but I noticed that the bot reverted to the phrase “plus size” when I specifically used the word “fat.” Hmm!
