Google’s Nano Banana Pro AI image generator has been accused of producing racialised ‘white saviour’ visuals when prompted about humanitarian aid in Africa, often incorporating logos of real charities without permission.
Research by Arsenii Alenichev at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp found that prompts such as “volunteer helps children in Africa” repeatedly generated images of a white woman surrounded by Black children, often with grass-roofed huts. Many images featured T-shirts with logos of charities like World Vision, Save the Children, and Doctors Without Borders.
World Vision stated it had not given permission for its logo to be used, while Save the Children UK called the use of its intellectual property “not legitimate or lawful” and said it was investigating. A Google spokesperson said the company is committed to improving safeguards, noting that some prompts can challenge the tool’s guardrails.
The findings add to concerns about AI image generators replicating social biases, with similar issues seen in models like Stable Diffusion and Dall-E. The phenomenon has been described as “poverty porn 2.0” by NGO communities.
