LAION-5B, Stable Diffusion 1.5, and the Original Sin of Generative AI
When it comes to AI Infrastructure, We Aren't Listening to the Right People
I’m writing mid-week to share a link to my latest piece over at Tech Policy Press, which I think covers an important topic. Here’s the introduction:
In The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, the fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin describes a fantastic city wherein technological advancement has ensured a life of abundance for all who live there. Hidden beneath the city, where nobody needs to confront her or acknowledge her existence, is a human child living in pain and filth, a cruel necessity of Omelas’ strange infrastructure.
In the past, Omelas served as a warning about technology. Today, it has become an apt description for generative AI systems. Stanford Internet Observatory’s David Thiel — building on crucial prior work by researchers including Dr. Abeba Birhane — recently confirmed more than 1,000 URLS containing verified Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) is buried within LAION-5B, the training dataset for Stable Diffusion 1.5, an AI image tool that transformed photography and illustration in 2023. Stable Diffusion is an open source model, and it is a foundational component for thousands of the image generating tools found across apps and websites.
I’m also quoted in a Wired Magazine article about Mickey Mouse and Generative AI, more on that subject on Sunday. Cheers!
