"Pygmalion
Featuring Russell Chun, Associate Professor of Journalism, Media Studies, and Public Relations
In the ancient Greek myth, Pygmalion sculpts a beautiful life-like statue that he falls in love with. The goddess Aphrodite transforms the statue into a real woman, fulfilling Pygmalion’s desire. Today, generative artificial intelligence (AI) democratizes the craft of image-making so any one of us can create visuals with simple text prompts. Given this newfound power of Pygmalion’s skill, what does the public choose to create? This investigation explores ways in which user-generated AI media reflects existing racial or gender prejudices in our culture. To what extent are generative AI tools being used to reinforce or upend stereotypes in visual communication? To what extent does racial and gender representations in AI mirror traditional media?
