--- title: "An Asian Woman Asked AI to Improve Her Headshot and It Turned Her White" description: "While messing with an AI image generator, an Asian MIT grad found that the bot's way of professionalizing her headshot was to make her white." date: "2023-08-01" modified: "2023-08-01" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/asian-woman-ai-generator-white" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai art" - "ai bias" - "image generator" - "the digest" --- # An Asian Woman Asked AI to Improve Her Headshot and It Turned Her White ![While messing with an AI image generator, an Asian MIT grad found that the bot's way of professionalizing her headshot was to make her white.]() *\Image: Rona Wang / Futurism\* ## Race Matters While messing with an AI image generator, an Asian-American MIT grad found that the bot's way of professionalizing her headshot was to make her... white. In an [interview with *Insider*](), 24-year-old Rona Wang said prompted the Playground AI image editor to make her headshot seem more "professional" — and instead, it lightened her skin and, well, basically changed her race. https://twitter.com/ronawang/status/1679867848741765122?s=20 ## CEO No Unsurprisingly, the post went viral, garnering a [quick response]() from Playground AI's CEO Suhail Doshi, and soon after, an [interview with the *Boston Globe*]() about the debacle. *Futurism* and *Insider* both reached out to Playground for comment without response, though the CEO did respond to the *Globe*'s interview questions with a few rhetorical ones of his own. "If I roll a dice just once and get the number 1, does that mean I will always get the number 1?" Doshi quipped. Should I conclude based on a single observation that the dice is biased to the number 1 and was trained to be predisposed to rolling a 1?" ## Unbearable Whiteness Though Wang had been using AI image generators for some time — her commentary about it was even republished on [MIT's admissions blog]() just a few weeks before the Playground incident — this time seemed much more personal. "I was like, 'Wow, does this thing think I should become white to become more professional?'" she told the *Globe*, adding that she hopes that the "people who are making software are aware of these biases and thinking about ways to mitigate them." In that initial interview, Wang said that she didn't "want to jump to conclusions that this AI must be racist," but in her latest comments to *Insider*, it seems like her views may have changed. "Racial bias is a recurring issue in AI tools," she said. "I haven't gotten any usable results from AI photo generators or editors yet, so I'll have to go without a new LinkedIn profile photo for now!" While she's far from alone either in having an image generator [turn her white]() or in getting a [racist output in general](), this flash-in-the-pan controversy is yet another example of AI messing up hugely — even as companies [rush to replace human workers]() with this very imperfect and imprecise software. **More on AI fails:** [*When AI Is Trained on AI-Generated Data, Strange Things Start to Happen*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()