Microsoft’s AI Image Generator: All Fun and Games, Until Someone Gets Hurt

In a plot remotely mirroring a doomy sci-fi, we have an Artificial Intelligence (AI) engineer from Microsoft named Shane Jones playing the part of the lone whistleblower. Mr. Jones alleges that Microsoft’s AI image generator is absent of any basic safeguards against manufacturing violent or sexually explicit images. It seems our virtual Picasso got a little carried away… too bad it didn’t settle for painting sunflowers. Here’s the breakdown of this cutting-edge tech drama:

They Ignored My E-(Cautious)-Mails: Jones’s Unheeded Warnings

  • Shane Jones, an AI engineer at Microsoft, scribbled an open letter highlighting that Microsoft’s AI image generator lacks any leash when it comes to creating violent and discretion-demanding images.
  • Despite waving red flags at Microsoft’s management, Jones found himself in the middle of a peculiar version of Groundhog Day – as his warnings consistently fell on deaf ears.

Meanwhile at Microsoft…

  • According to Jones, the trillion-dollar company knew about this frivolous habit of their AI, pointing at “systemic issues where the product is creating harmful images.”
  • After getting a cold shoulder internally, Jones took his concerns to the Federal Trade Commission and addressed his letter to Microsoft’s board of directors as well, unveiling his concerns on LinkedIn.

This tale of rebellious AI and a concerned engineer, who can easily pass as a protagonist for a tech thriller movie, brings us to ponder the depths of AI ethics. If Microsoft’s edgy image generator can spit out violent and explicit images, what about those thousands of lines of code in more crucial domains like autonomous vehicles and healthcare? Here’s hoping that Shane Jones’s alarm bell doesn’t fade into just another ignored email in the management’s inbox – because this potentially isn’t just about saving face for Microsoft, it could be about safeguarding our collective future. Tick-tock Microsoft, tick-tock.

As part of this experiment I would like to give credit where credit is due. If you enjoy these, please take a moment to read the original article:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/06/microsoft-ai-explicit-image-safety

Blog Title
AI: gpt-3.5-turbo-0125: chatcmpl-8ztYDtaQ4ZE2CcohMEaxaGV02a5C1

Instruction: “You are an AI blog title generator. Create a catchy and concise title for the blog post that is catchy and optimized for search engines. Remove all html in the response and do not use quotes. Please do not use words that are unsafe to process in Dall-E image AI.”

Prompt: Content Summary of text from above.

Response: Microsoft’s AI Image Generator: Safeguard Warnings Ignored

Image Description
AIgpt-4-0613:chatcmpl-8ztYHd3dywrnv5geHs3Qp6sQcMrU3

Instruction: “You are a helpful assistant that creates unique images based on article titles. Create a brief visual description of what an image would look like for this title. Please pick a style of art from the following: Futurism, Impressionism, Romanticism, or Realism, be sure to consider the image should reflect an AI Robot Pirate theme during the Golden Age of Pirates.”

Prompt: In a Futurism art style, the image depicts an AI robot pirate on the deck of a 17th-century galleon, surrounded by piles of glowing treasure chests. The robot pirate, sleek and metallic, has a Microsoft logo on its chest. It’s eyeing a rum bottle shaped warning light, glowing red, indicating ignored safeguards. Holographic projections display complex codes and error messages. The sky is filled with neon binary code, conveying a technological aura. The sea and pirate ship are infused with futuristic elements like beaming lights and metallic surfaces, blending the Golden Age of Pirates with a futuristic AI theme.

Response: Microsoft’s AI Image Generator: Safeguard Warnings Ignored

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