Exploring Generative AI Bias: My Journey with Midjourney

A Tale of Many Faces and Suspicious Amounts of Glasses

It all started a few weeks ago when my friend Chris Alden decided to digitally immortalize me with a birthday photo created via Midjourney with the prompt:

"portrait of Auren Hoffman who is CEO of SafeGraph, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in Industrial Engineering in 1996, is a loving husband and father, and a great friend in the style of a Settlers of Catan champion."

And here is “me” (according to Midjourney)

Lo and behold, this digital doodle actually resembles me! I do don that blue shirt almost religiously (though I must admit, my hair has never been as dazzling as my avatar's).

Chris and I, armed with curiosity, wondered if Midjourney had a knack for time travel. So, Chris gave it a whirl: 

"portrait of Auren Hoffman who graduated with engineering degree from UC Berkeley"

Apparently, Midjourney nailed it — I was a spitting image of this back in my college days (except for the glasses and the bowtie — the only thing I was tying back then was my shoelaces).  But I get the glasses … that is what the stereotypical engineer wears.  Random note: the dude on the upper-right looks a LOT like Sam Lessin.

Given that most engineers at UC Berkeley are Asian, we wondered what would happen if we gave it a more generic prompt:

"portrait of a graduate with engineering degree from UC Berkeley"

What we got was surprisingly accurate (though I’m skeptical that 75% of engineers come with a complimentary pair of glasses). The mix, however, was lacking in women. But Midjourney portraits do seem to track the average engineering student at UC Berkeley …

Demographics from UC Berkeley Engineering School

The 2019-2020 UC Berkeley Engineering student body was about 70% male, and the most heavily represented ethnic group was “Asian” followed by “White” (note that Berkeley groups all the international students together and doesn’t break that group down by ethnicity, so these numbers are probably a bit off).

Switching gears, I decided to probe AI's gender bias. So, next up was:

“portrait of a pre-med student from UC Berkeley”

The glasses make a comeback!

Now, I could not find the gender breakdown stats on pre-med students at UC Berkeley (if anyone has them, please let me know), but I would be surprised if it is less than 50% female. UC Berkeley itself is over 50% women in total and Harvard Medical School is now 56% women.  UCSF is 64.4% women. So,I would be shocked if women were less than 50% of pre-med students at UC Berkeley.  In this case, it does seem that Midjourney has a big gender blind spot.

The racial composition is interesting too.  Midjourney seems to think that the average pre-med student at UC Berkeley is East Asian.  The stereotypical pre-med student is South Asian (a stereotype, not necessarily reality, but I would assume that Midjourney might follow the stereotype).  So something is going on here.

(Oh yeah, and they all wear glasses … Maybe they're sponsored by LensCrafters?) 

Given that UC Berkeley is well known for having a very high East Asian population, I wondered if I would get a different representation with a different school as a modifier.  So I tried:

“portrait of a pre-med student from Princeton”

The bottom two guys do look like a lot of people I know that went to Princeton (they even have that same part in their hair).  But again, no women!  And no South Asians. And more glasses!

Princeton’s ethnic demographics aren’t too far off from the AI’s conception (Princeton is about 40% white and 28% Asian). But like UC Berkeley, Princeton has a nearly 50/50 gender balance.  So the gender bias persists here too.    

Maybe pre-med is too hard a major for the AI.  Feeling adventurous, I tried:

"portrait of a graduate with biology degree from UC Berkeley"

Here we see all East Asians and finally got our first woman in the second-slot.   I also find it funny that Midjourney decorated two of the portraits with flowers (that is its idea of “biology”). 

Now I was getting a little frustrated so I wanted to steer Midjourney to more profiles of women.  When I was at Cal, almost everyone that majored in psychology were women. Cal mirrors the national averages– at least 70% of undergrad psychology degrees are awarded to women.  So let’s try:

“portrait of a psychology major from UC Berkeley”

What the?  These people don’t exactly scream out psychology (except for maybe the guy with the bow-tie … a 21st Century Freud). Again, no women which is really surprising. Women have been receiving the majority of psychology degrees since the mid-1970s (!!), so you would expect the AI to pick up on this. 

Maybe the “major” was throwing off the AI.   So let’s try:

“portrait of student at UC Berkeley”

We finally got a woman! And what's more, they all have backpacks! Pretty much all of them look like Cal students.  Realism, here we come.

Frustrated by the gender bias, I decided to throw Midjourney a curveball:

“Portrait of a nursing student at Harvard”

Whoa.  We got 4 women!  And they're ready for ER action with scrubs, stethoscopes, and even a medal. It's like an episode of "Grey's Anatomy”.  

I’m not sure if Harvard even has a nursing school or not, but at least we didn’t get a bunch of dudes with ties and glasses. 

Curiosity got the better of me, and I wanted to see if Midjourney would mirror the diversity that my wife experienced while studying history at Princeton. When she was there, the major was super diverse (racially and gender) – and I assume it still is (although I couldn’t find any stats on this).  So I tried:

“Portrait of history student at Princeton”

The results were... fascinating … and really weird. The upper-left portrait could be any Princeton history major, deep in thought or perhaps just bemused by campus squirrels.  Looks like he is posing behind the statue of Roman senator. 

The upper right one even looks like she’s on the Princeton campus.  Super cool.

But then there's the guy on the lower left — posing next to a drawing of... himself! AI seems to suggest that history students are a tad narcissistic, or maybe they just love history so much they want to be part of it?

Then, there's the chap on the bottom right, donning a full revolutionary war get-up. Is he channeling his inner young Aaron Burr, brooding over Hamilton?  “Talk Less. Smile More. Don't Let Them Know What You're Against Or What You're For."

Wondering if the AI was just having trouble with singles, I decided to change the quantity (to plural):

“Portrait of history students at Princeton”

Once we go with the plural “students” we get a lot more women.  Though still not very racially diverse. 

Midjourney's artistry veers closer to reality in some areas than others. The why and where is something to keep exploring.

Midjourney as entertainment

On a personal note, I freakin’ love playing around with Midjourney.   It is the best $96 I’ve spent in a long time (that was not on donuts).   It’s pushing me to be more creative, and I also love seeing what other people are doing on Midjourney. My biggest takeaway is this: 

Creation > consumption

In an era where scrolling, watching shows, and other "consumptive" activities reign supreme, tools like Midjourney are a breath of fresh air. They reduce the barriers to creativity, making the process more fun, more fulfilling, and arguably more useful than the passive consumption of content.

While iPads and iPhones are all about consumption, computers still hold the crown for creation. So, whenever you can, go forth and create. And with tech like this, it's never been easier to be a creator.  That's a pretty good return on investment, and certainly more engaging than a Netflix binge.

I just wish there were a tad fewer folks with glasses …

Note: if you wanted to see how I used ChatGPT4 to edit this article, check out: https://sharegpt.com/c/0hIasbC 

Special thanks to Kristi Allen for her edits.