Comment by feoren

My point is that there is no prompt engineering that could keep Vikings white without also keeping Italian plumbers looking like Mario. Unless you singled out Mario, but there are too many examples to do that with. The AI does not put Mario in a different category than a Viking. You have to try to get the AI to avoid using exact literal imagery, to make sure it's mixing things up a bit, varying facial features and clothing styles when it shows people ... you know, being "diverse". How are we supposed to get an Italian plumber in anything other than red overalls without getting a Viking wearing a sari?

The Gemini prompt was something like "make sure any images of people show a diverse range of humans", or something. Yes, it was totally ham-handed, but that's not what people were pissed about. It's also ham-handed that we can't generate a nipple, or a swear word, or violence. Why does "make sure images do not contain excessive violence" not piss people off? The Vikings were fucking brutal. It would be very historically accurate to show them raping women and cutting people's limbs off. Are we all supposed to be pissed that AI does not generate that image? It's just as ham-handed as "make sure humans are diverse". No, it was not the ham-handedness that enraged people. It was not the historical inaccuracy. It was the word "diverse".