Generating Privilege

Ask students to think back to the different statements about privilege they considered in the Privilege in Media activity.

Have them navigate to the student chapter Generating Privilege and watch the video there, or show the video to the class in fullscreen.

Ask: based on what you’ve just learned about how generative AI makes images, how do you think they are likely to represent Indigenous people?

After a brief discussion, have them go through the images in the Agamotto activity in the same chapter, then discuss the representations:

What similarities do you see between them?

Do you see things that are accurate but might be stereotyped? (For instance, while some Indigenous peoples do wear feathered headdresses as part of their regalia, many others do not – and those that do only wear them on certain occasions.)

How does the representation of Indigenous people in stock photos and generative AI connect to the idea of privilege in media? (Remind students that AI distils bias because it is often based on content that already contains biases, such as stock photo libraries.)