Ideogram seemed to start as a rather free and permissive image generator in August 2023. In the meantime, a noticeable number of images are censored. It is not the prompt that matters, but the image itself. If the platform detects during generation that the image might be problematic, it is not finished, but replaced by a tile with a cat holding a sign in its paws that says “MAYBE NOT SAFE”. A prompt read: “The sculpture Galatea, resembling the beautiful Aphrodite, creates itself, photo, film”. So, the sculpture of Pygmalion was to empower itself. The four images, two of which showed breasts, were seen by the user and also by the platform itself, apparently resulting in the images being transformed into the said warnings before they were completed. On the other hand, photorealistic images of women in revealing poses remain unproblematic, as long as they are wearing bikinis or hotpants. As with other American platforms, the problem here seems to be the visibility of nipples, whether human or sculptural. In another experiment, in one of the four pictures, the nipples were visible until they disappeared under the cat’s fur. In another sculpture, Ideogram itself had covered the nipples, one with her hand, the other with a piece of clay or stone jewellery. This Galatea was spared the fate of her sister.
BY OLIVER BENDEL
