This New AI Image Generator Is Trained Exclusively On Diverse Stock Photos

Create Labs Ventures is collaborating with TONL, a Black-owned stock photography company, to launch the first-ever AI-powered image-generator exclusively trained to create a Black-owned stock photo library, Femi Magazine reports.

This partnership aims to tackle biases in AI image generation, where models trained on white-dominated datasets often produce inaccurate or offensive depictions of Black, Brown, and other marginalized communities.  communities. By leveraging TONL’s diverse collection, it aims to create more authentic, representative images.

Black Representation in Stock Photography

TONL was founded by Nigerian-American social entrepreneur Karen Okonkwo and Ghanaian-American Joshua Kissi in 2017. The idea emerged when Okonkwo struggled to find suitable images for a blog she was creating with her sorority sisters.

Speaking with Afriquette, Okonkwo says, “I just felt like I could not find the images I needed to really convey a picture of diversity as it pertained to different sorority people, and that really haunted me as I continued to progress with the blog.”

Subsequently, she reached out to Kissi, a photographer, to change the way stock photography was presented. “One of the things we recognized was that stock photography is very, very dated, so we wanted to be more modern and appeal to the modern audience,” she said.

Create Labs x TONL Image Generator Under EMPWRD AI

Create Lab’s collaboration with TONL will ensure that Black faces, bodies and cultures are not left behind in AI-generated visuals. The Image Generator is an AI-powered image-generation tool trained solely on TONL’s Black-owned stock photo library.

This tool is part of the advanced AI platform EMPWRD AI, which helps brands, creators, and companies produce culturally accurate and inclusive images, allowing underrepresented communities to be represented authentically in AI-generated visuals. The TONL Image Generator is an essential feature within EMPWRD AI, which also features a social impact chatbot and a document analysis tool for equitable and bias-free AI research.

Image: TONL