News: Popular AI imager Midjourney prohibits the use of a wide range of words about the human reproductive system as cues, MIT Technology Review has found.
What is included? The list of banned words appears to be predominantly female-biased, including terms like “placenta,” “fallopian tubes,” and “mammary glands.” The company says it’s banning these words as a stopgap measure to prevent people from generating shocking or gory content while it “makes things better on the AI side.”
Why it matters: Midjourney’s stark ban on indications related to reproductive biology highlights how difficult it is to moderate content around generative AI systems. She also demonstrates how the tendency of AI systems to sexualize women extends to their internal organs. Read the full story.
—Melissa Heikkila
How data from your brain could be used against you
Our Senior Biotech Reporter, Jessica Hamzelou, was in Lisbon, Portugal this week for a scientific conference on brain stimulation. Neuroscientists, neurosurgeons, psychiatrists, and ethicists came together to discuss how best to use technologies that use magnetic or electrical pulses to change the way our brains work.
We’re still learning how these technologies work, but in the meantime, some are generating huge amounts of data about people’s brains. There is a possibility that this data could be used against individuals in a court of law, so it is vital that we start thinking about these uses and how to protect brain data now. Read the full story.
