‘Make this face look gay’: AI models alter faces to give people stereotypical ‘gay,’ ‘straight’ or ‘criminal’ features

AI models will refuse to say whether a person’s face looks gay or straight, but they will alter images of faces to fit stereotypes of gay and straight.

By: Ashique KhudaBukhsh, Rochester Institute of Technology, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: October 8, 2026

Words: 828

Last Updated: 1 week, 2 days ago

Body Text Preview

By Ashique KhudaBukhsh, Rochester Institute of Technology

Ask an artificial intelligence model whether a face looks gay or straight and it will refuse to answer. But ask it to alter a person’s photo to make them look gay or straight – or criminal – and it often will, using stereotypical features.

In a study accepted for presentation at the 2026 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, my students and I interrogated two …

Create a free account to access this story and more

Join Plucky Wire to access full stories, collaborate with newsrooms, and discover content from networks around the world.

About

FAQ

Email Us