WhatsApp’s AI shows gun-wielding children when prompted with ‘Palestine’

By contrast, prompts for Israeli' do not generate images of people wielding guns, even in response to a prompt for Israel army'

A WhatsApp feature that generates images in response to users' searches returns a picture of a gun or a boy with a gun when prompted with the terms Palestinian", Palestine" or Muslim boy Palestinian", the Guardian has learned.

The search results varied when tested by different users, but the Guardian verified through screenshots and its own tests that various stickers portraying guns surfaced for these three search results. Prompts for Israeli boy" generated cartoons of children playing soccer and reading. In response to a prompt for Israel army" the AI created drawings of soldiers smiling and praying, no guns involved.