The Challenge of Capturing Kamala Harris: AI’s Struggle with Accuracy and Bias in Image Generation

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The Challenges AI Faces in Accurately Depicting Kamala Harris

Last week, Elon Musk posted a manipulated picture on X that depicted Kamala Harris in the attire of a “communist dictator,” a portrayal that clearly didn't align with reality since Harris is not identified as a communist and there's no evidence to suggest she engages in Soviet-themed cosplay. Furthermore, numerous commentators pointed out that the figure in the image, believed to have been created using X’s Grok feature, barely shared any likeness with the Vice President.

"A user on platform X noted, 'AI fails to precisely represent Kamala Harris. It appears they're showcasing a completely unrelated Latina woman.'"

"Another person made a witty remark, saying Grok dressed up Eva Longoria in a stylish ensemble and then considered the task done, while also commenting on how much the 'dictator' in the photo resembled the actress from Desperate Housewives."

"A third person commented, saying, “There’s no way AI can accurately mimic Kamala Harris. It’s astonishing to see the algorithm struggle with capturing someone of South Indian and Jamaican descent who is AMERICAN.”

Numerous AI-generated visuals of Harris are of poor quality. On the other hand, a tweet showcasing a computer-generated clip that depicts Harris and Donald Trump engaged in a love affair—ending with her cradling a baby resembling Trump—has amassed close to 28 million views on X. In the video, Harris appears to transform into various individuals, whereas the imagery of Trump, which is noticeably superior, stays relatively stable.

In our experiment with Grok to generate an image of Harris and Trump coming together to read a WIRED magazine, the outcomes consistently portrayed the former president correctly but failed to accurately capture the vice president. Harris was shown with inconsistent features, hairstyles, and skin colors. At times, she even resembled Michelle Obama, the former First Lady, more than herself.

Grok stands out from several well-known AI image creation tools because it permits users to generate counterfeit images of political leaders. Notably, Midjourney implemented restrictions earlier this year, preventing its users from making images of Trump and President Joe Biden. (This restriction also applies to Harris.) This decision came after the Center for Countering Digital Hate released a report indicating that the tool could be exploited to produce various politically motivated images.

In the same vein, during WIRED's evaluations, both OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini declined to generate pictures of Harris or Trump. On the other hand, several freely available image creation tools did generate images of politicians, similar to Grok. Among these, WIRED discovered that Stable Diffusion was capable of generating subpar images of Harris.

Contemporary artificial intelligence systems for creating images employ diffusion models, which craft visuals based on textual instructions. These models are trained on vast collections of tagged images, often sourced from the internet or other databases. Joaquin Cuenca Abela, the chief executive officer of Freepik, a firm that provides access to numerous AI utilities including a variety of image creators, explained to WIRED the challenge these generators face in accurately depicting Harris versus Trump stems from the limited availability of properly tagged photos.

Even though Harris is a notable personality, she hasn't been captured on camera as frequently as Trump. A search conducted by WIRED on the photo service Getty Images confirms this, revealing 63,295 pictures of Harris in contrast to 561,778 of Trump. Due to her fairly late arrival on the presidential campaign scene, Harris is considered "a fresh face" to those creating images with AI, says Cuenca Abela. He notes, "There's always a bit of a delay in catching up."

The fact that Harris identifies as a Black woman with roots in both Jamaica and India could also play a role. Irene Solaiman, who leads global policy at the AI firm Hugging Face, points out that the automated labeling of Harris' images might be impacted due to "less accurate facial recognition for individuals with darker skin tones and feminine features." The challenge of facial recognition technology struggling to accurately identify women and people with darker skin tones was initially brought to light in the 2018 study titled Gender Shades by Joy Boulamwini, a researcher at MIT, and Timnit Gebru, who is currently the founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute.

Another factor could explain the subpar AI renditions of Harris. "The goal behind these images isn't to achieve photo-realism but to promote a specific story," states Hany Farid, a specialist in identifying deepfakes and co-founder of GetReal Labs, a company that develops tools to detect fraudulent media.

Essentially, the individuals circulating artificial intelligence-created pictures of Harris are likely more focused on creating content that will generate laughs rather than accurately depicting her appearance. The picture labeled as a “communist dictator” that Musk distributed, along with the clip showing Harris with her Trump-like doll, are primarily aimed at mocking and belittling the Democratic contender instead of disseminating false information.

Ari Lightman, who teaches digital media and marketing at Heinz College of Carnegie Mellon University, suggests that there are individuals who might be intentionally picking unflattering images of Harris to bolster the narrative that she is deceptive. Lightman points out, "We're living in a time where communication is heavily influenced by artificial intelligence. When it's executed poorly, it's likely intended to convey a specific point."

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