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How's it going to harm people? What's an example of what one might ask this to do where "the model very rarely outputs racist images even for innocuous inputs"

How's it going to harm people? What's an example of what one might ask this to do where "the model very rarely outputs racist images even for innocuous inputs" causes real harm? The only answers I can think of require us to use the model for unethical things - like profiling people at the airport or something. That would be abjectly wrong for lots of reasons even if the model itself were fine. If you use the model to make images to use creatively, well, there's always a human deciding what images to use. Also, "I saw a racist picture" doesn't rise to a level of harm where I feel like we have to pump the brakes. So I still feel like I'm missing something.

danaris 4y ago
It's harm in a similar way that racist depictions appearing in fiction—and even the lack of positive depictions of marginalized groups appearing in fiction—is harm.
- ivraatiems 4y ago
  I'm all for diversity in fiction, eliminating caricatures, positive portrayal of marginalized groups, etc. But that's different from saying "I think works which don't have these features should be banned". That kind of harm is just too dilute to justify this approach to me, especially given all the ethical concerns that exist if you force the model to stay only in the hands of its creators and make them its gatekeepers. (Bearing in mind that the creators of the model are a for-profit corporation, not a bunch of AI ethicists.) And again, I support improving the model so it doesn't generate racist (or any other -ist) content. I just think that improvement, and indeed all work on the model, is better done in the open.
  - danaris 4y ago
    It's not about banning works that don't include such things. It's about genuine concern that entire categories of works that lack them cause problems. If none of my images from Stable Diffusion contain black people, that's not a big deal (I mostly don't even ask it for people, because it's not that good at them). If none of the images from Stable Diffusion or any of its brethren contain black people, that's a problem, especially if we start using these sorts of tools to generate art for things like games, book illustrations/covers, etc....but even if we don't; even if it's just a bunch of people playing around with them on the Internet. Not seeing yourself in media, even this kind of media, does a kind of harm that it's very hard for us "normal" (white, cis, straight, male, etc—and yes, I am all of those) people to fully grasp.

danaris 4y ago

It's harm in a similar way that racist depictions appearing in fiction—and even the lack of positive depictions of marginalized groups appearing in fiction—is harm.

ivraatiems 4y ago
I'm all for diversity in fiction, eliminating caricatures, positive portrayal of marginalized groups, etc. But that's different from saying "I think works which don't have these features should be banned". That kind of harm is just too dilute to justify this approach to me, especially given all the ethical concerns that exist if you force the model to stay only in the hands of its creators and make them its gatekeepers. (Bearing in mind that the creators of the model are a for-profit corporation, not a bunch of AI ethicists.) And again, I support improving the model so it doesn't generate racist (or any other -ist) content. I just think that improvement, and indeed all work on the model, is better done in the open.
- danaris 4y ago
  It's not about banning works that don't include such things. It's about genuine concern that entire categories of works that lack them cause problems. If none of my images from Stable Diffusion contain black people, that's not a big deal (I mostly don't even ask it for people, because it's not that good at them). If none of the images from Stable Diffusion or any of its brethren contain black people, that's a problem, especially if we start using these sorts of tools to generate art for things like games, book illustrations/covers, etc....but even if we don't; even if it's just a bunch of people playing around with them on the Internet. Not seeing yourself in media, even this kind of media, does a kind of harm that it's very hard for us "normal" (white, cis, straight, male, etc—and yes, I am all of those) people to fully grasp.