Popular website Buzzfeed published an article featuring AI-generated images of Barbie Dolls from every country around the world. The piece has received extreme backlash for promoting racist micro-aggressions and cultural inaccuracies, which prompted the website to delete the article from all of their social media pages.
Buzzfeed had given a brief disclaimer before the article that they acknowledged the biases and stereotypes demonstrated by AI models, clarifiying that these depictions should not be seen as accurate or comprehensive portrayals of human experiences.
The article featured Barbies from all around the world, including one from Pakistan, who looked more like she stepped out of an Arabian fantasy book rather than from the streets of Lahore or Karachi.
And the Barbie from India looks a lot more like subcontinent’s colonial masters than Deepika Padukone, the ACTUAL Barbie.
And don’t even get me started on what the Afghanistan Barbie looks like. It’s a shame how a vibrant culture is reduced to burqas by racist algorithms
A lot of the dolls featured in the article from Asian countries like Vietnam and Korea were wearing inaccurate clothing along with white-washed features.
A Barbie from South Sudan was seen carrying a gun, drawing outrage from users.
