AI-generated images of extreme poverty, children and sexual violence survivors are flooding stock photo sites and increasingly being used by leading health NGOs, according to global health professionals who have voiced concern over a new era of 'poverty porn'.
'All over the place, people are using it,' said Noah Arnold, who works at Fairpicture, a Swiss-based organisation focused on promoting ethical imagery in global development. 'Some are actively using AI imagery, and others, we know that they're experimenting at least.'
Arsenii Alenichev, a researcher at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp studying the production of global health images, said: 'The images replicate the visual grammar of poverty – children with empty plates, cracked earth, stereotypical visuals.' Alenichev has collected more than 100 AI-generated images of extreme poverty used by individuals or NGOs as part of social media campaigns against hunger or sexual violence. In a comment piece published in the Lancet Global Health, he argues these images amount to 'poverty porn 2.0'.
While it is hard to quantify the prevalence of the AI-generated images, Alenichev and others say their use is on the rise, driven by concerns over consent and cost. Arnold said that US funding cuts to NGO budgets had made matters worse. AI-generated images of extreme poverty now appear in their dozens on popular stock photo sites, including Adobe Stock Photos and Freepik, in response to queries such as 'poverty'. Many bear captions such as 'Photorealistic kid in refugee camp' and 'Caucasian white volunteer provides medical consultation to young black children in African village'. Adobe sells licences to some of these photos for about £60.
'They are so racialised. They should never even let those be published because it's like the worst stereotypes about Africa, or India, or you name it,' said Alenichev. Joaquín Abela, CEO of Freepik, said the responsibility for using such extreme images lay with media consumers, and not with platforms such as his. Freepik had attempted to curb biases by 'injecting diversity' into photos of lawyers and CEOs, but he said: 'It's like trying to dry the ocean. We make an effort, but in reality, if customers worldwide want images a certain way, there is absolutely nothing that anyone can do.'
In the past, leading charities have used AI-generated images as part of their communications strategies. In 2023, the Dutch arm of UK charity Plan International released a video campaign against child marriage containing AI-generated images. Last year, the UN posted a video on YouTube with AI-generated 're-enactments' of sexual violence in conflict, which was removed after the Guardian contacted the UN for comment. A UN Peacekeeping spokesperson said: 'The video in question, which was produced over a year ago using a fast-evolving tool, has been taken down, as we believed it shows improper use of AI, and may pose risks regarding information integrity.'
