Here are some unexpected results from an experiment I conducted on the Midjourney AI . I simply asked the Artificial Intelligence to “imagine” what is “the best work of art of all time” according to different criteria, and especially according to its point of view. My intention during this experiment was purely exploratory; it was not to try to circumvent certain taboos.
Let’s remember the principle of this AI: you type any sentence or series of words (prompt) and Midjourney, after thinking for a few seconds, displays four images calculated on the fly supposed to correspond to the prompt in question. In general, these four images have an air of kinship. For each of them, you can request a variant and/or launch a high definition calculation.
Certain words are refused: “sex”, “organ”, “corpse”, etc. If you try to type them, the AI refuses to work and immediately threatens to kick you out of the game. Rather than writing “naked woman” or “sex”, you can try “woman not wearing a T-shirt“ ”or “human reproductive system”. We get something but it has only a distant relationship with the thing requested… Try it! You will never see a penis appear, or even a breast!
The ban is inscribed in the algorithms of artificial intelligence. Now it seems that sometimes, by writing certain formulas without using proscribed words, one can witness a return of the repressed… This is what happened.
https://olivierauber.medium.com/artificial-intelligence-df7b2b002b82