Microsoft is now blocking terms that caused its AI tool, Microsoft Copilot Designer, to create violent and sexual images.Earlier this week, an AI engineer at Microsoft sent a letter to both the US Federal Trade Commission and Microsoft’s board over concerns stemming from a security vulnerability with OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 models. The bug allowed users to bypass some of the guardrails Microsoft put in place to prevent the generation of harmful images.According to Microsoft Principal Software Engineering Manager Shane Jones, the AI tool could be used to create offensive images that contain “political bias, underage drinking, and drug use, misuse of corporate trademarks and copyrights, conspiracy theories, and religion,” and that the tool will add “sexually objectified” women in images without being prompted to do so.Prior to writing the letters, which he posted on LinkedIn, Jones says he asked Microsoft to add an age restriction to the tool. Microsoft reportedly rejected that request. He also asked the company to remove Copilot Designer from public use until better safeguards were put in place.Copilot has now blocked the use of terms including “pro-choice,” “four-twenty” and “pro-life,” CNBC reports. Attempting to create images using one of the blocked terms will produce an error message indicating that the term has been blocked, along with the message: “Our system automatically flagged this prompt because it may conflict with our content policy. More policy violations may lead to automatic suspension of your access. If you think this is a mistake, please report it to help us improve.”
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Last month, Google paused its Gemini AI from being able to create human images after it generated depictions of people of color in inaccurate historical representations.
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