"Draw me a curator" Examining the visual stereotyping of a cultural services profession by generative AI

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Spennemann, Dirk HR
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Spennemann, Dirk HR
author_facet Spennemann, Dirk HR
contents Based on 230 visualisations, this paper examines the depiction of museum curators by the popular generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) model, ChatGPT4o. While the AI-generated representations do not reiterate popular stereotypes of curators as nerdy, conservative in dress and stuck in time rummaging through collections, they contrast sharply with real-world demographics. AI-generated imagery extremely underrepresents women (3.5% vs 49% to 72% in reality) and disregards ethnic communities other than Caucasian (0% vs 18% to 36%). It only over-represents young curators (79% vs approx. 27%) but also renders curators to resemble yuppie professionals or people featuring in fashion advertising. Stereotypical attributes are prevalent, with curators widely depicted as wearing beards and holding clipboards or digital tablets. The findings highlight biases in the generative AI image creation dataset, which is poised to shape an inaccurate portrayal of museum professionals if the images were to be taken uncritically at face value.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_07132
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle "Draw me a curator" Examining the visual stereotyping of a cultural services profession by generative AI
Spennemann, Dirk HR
Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
Based on 230 visualisations, this paper examines the depiction of museum curators by the popular generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) model, ChatGPT4o. While the AI-generated representations do not reiterate popular stereotypes of curators as nerdy, conservative in dress and stuck in time rummaging through collections, they contrast sharply with real-world demographics. AI-generated imagery extremely underrepresents women (3.5% vs 49% to 72% in reality) and disregards ethnic communities other than Caucasian (0% vs 18% to 36%). It only over-represents young curators (79% vs approx. 27%) but also renders curators to resemble yuppie professionals or people featuring in fashion advertising. Stereotypical attributes are prevalent, with curators widely depicted as wearing beards and holding clipboards or digital tablets. The findings highlight biases in the generative AI image creation dataset, which is poised to shape an inaccurate portrayal of museum professionals if the images were to be taken uncritically at face value.
title "Draw me a curator" Examining the visual stereotyping of a cultural services profession by generative AI
topic Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.07132