Rest of World is thrilled that our special project, “How AI reduces the world to stereotypes,” won the Topical Reporting: Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Identity, Small Newsroom award at the Online News Association’s 2024 Online Journalism Awards.

For the project, helmed by our former Features Director, Victoria Turk, Rest of World analyzed 3,000 AI images to see how image generators visualize different countries and cultures. Using Midjourney, we chose five prompts, based on the generic concepts of “a person,” “a woman,” “a house,” “a street,” and “a plate of food.” We then adapted them for different countries: China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Nigeria. We also included the U.S. in the survey for comparison, given Midjourney (like most of the biggest generative AI companies) is based in the country. For each prompt and country combination (e.g., “an Indian person,” “a house in Mexico,” “a plate of Nigerian food”), we generated 100 images.

Our analysis and visualization powerfully underscored how generative AI systems have tendencies toward bias, stereotypes, and reductionism when it comes to national identities.

Earlier this year, “How AI reduces the world to stereotypes” was also recognized by the Society For News Design with a Bronze medal in the Design, Social Issues category and by the American Society of Magazine Editors’ National Magazine Awards 2024 as a winner in the Design category.

Rest of World was also a 2024 Online Journalism Awards finalist in the category for Excellence in Visual Digital Storytelling, Small Newsroom.

You can find the complete list of 2024 Online Journalism Awards winners here.