Historical images made with AI recycle colonial stereotypes and bias – new research

My soon-to-be-published new research finds generative AI also carries a colonial bias. When prompted to visualise Aotearoa New Zealand’s past, Sora privileges the European settler viewpoint: pre-colonial landscapes are rendered as empty wilderness, Captain Cook appears as a calm civiliser, and Māori are cast as timeless, peripheral figures. As generative AI tools become increasingly influential in how we communicate, such depictions matter. They naturalise myths of benevolent colonisation and undermine Māori claims to political sovereignty, redress and cultural revitalisation.