“Are You Alright, Netherlands?”: AI Generates The ‘Most Stereotypical Person’ From 20 Countries, And People Have Thoughts (2024)

It seems like artificial intelligence is in the news every day now. ChatGPT, Sophia the robot and AI image generators have taken the internet by storm. (Remember that week where everyone was posting AI-created portraits of themselves on Instagram?)

There were already plenty of supporters and critics of AI-generated art, but recently, it seems like the technology has gained even more. Reddit user WeirdLime used image generator Midjourney to create depictions of the most “stereotypical” men and women in various European countries, and viewers have had a lot to say about the results. Below, you’ll find all of the images, a handful of reactions they’ve received and a conversation between WeirdLime and Bored Panda!

To learn more about how these controversial images came about in the first place, we reached out to Reddit user WeirdLime, who shared the images in the Midjourney subreddit and was kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda. WeirdLime explained that she used Midjourney (v5.1) to create these images and that she was inspired by another post featuring images of “the most stereotypical” people in various US states. “I was curious what this would look like for Europe."

“Once I started prompting, I realized that ALL the outputs were men, so I was curious about how women would look. Of course ‘the most stereotypical woman’ and 'the most stereotypical female’ are both banned, so I attached ‘--no male’,” she explained. “I still got 70% of men in those outputs. Also, a large number of outputs were extremely old people. The final results are a curious concoction of traditional costumes and flag colors.”

As far as her reactions to these images go, WeirdLime told Bored Panda, “I was both confused and amused that Belgium gave me 100% clowns. The female Belgian still looks very much like a clown.” We were also curious what she thought about the images for her own country, Germany. “I believe the female person does look like a stereotypical German regarding facial features, though I'm not quite sure what's up with the oranges,” she shared. “As for the male German, I'm not really sure what to think of him. He looks like he could be the next Doctor Who (as do a lot of them, especially the Slovenian male, who actually looks like David Tennant).”

We also asked WeirdLime what she expected the images to look like. “AI is incredibly biased towards certain things,” she noted. “This is strikingly obvious in these ‘stereotypical’ posts, and for me, this was an experiment to see how midjourney would handle these requests. As I wrote in one of my comments on the posts, I was surprised that when prompted for stereotypical person from [country], the vast majority of outputs showed me male people, which then in turn made me curious to see what the female equivalents would be.”

“I expected them to look a bit more modern, but Midjourney seems to be very biased towards traditional and historical garments, especially for the female versions,” the OP continued. “I tried to prompt for more modern versions, but Midjourney seemed to insist that stereotypical people from [country] would always involve traditional garments.”

Despite how questionable some of these images are, WeirdLime is still an advocate for AI. “I work in AI, so I'm a bit biased,” she told Bored Panda. “I think it's an incredibly helpful tool, both for images and for text. I used Midjourney to generate new ideas for actual paintings, based on paintings I previously painted and which I later painted based on Midjourney's output. I also used it extensively to illustrate RPG campaigns. ChatGPT has also been an incredibly helpful tool for me, for example, in converting bullet points to paragraphs.”

And although the images have received mixed feedback from viewers, WeirdLime appreciated what the Finns thought of their male image. “I was happy that the majority of [them] seemed to really enjoy the most stereotypical Finnish male person and his awesome mushroom hat.”

We would love to hear your thoughts on these images in the comments below, pandas. Was your country represented in one of these pics? And if so, how accurate do you think it was? Feel free to share, and then if you’re interested in checking out another Bored Panda piece discussing AI images that weren’t quite what people were expecting, look no further than right here!

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