Work

Investigating toxicity and Bias in stable diffusion text-to-image models

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Text-to-image models are increasingly popular and impactful, yet concerns regarding their safety and fairness remain. This study investigates the ability of ten popular Stable Diffusion models to generate harmful images, including sexual, violent, and personally sensitive material. We demonstrate that these models respond to harmful prompts by generating inappropriate content, which frequently displays troubling biases, such as the disproportionate portrayal of Black individuals in violent contexts. Our findings demonstrate a complete lack of any refusal behavior or safety measures in the models observed. We emphasize the importance of addressing this issue as image generation technologies continue to become more accessible and incorporated into everyday applications.

Source: Scientific Reports

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-12032-4

Authors: Matthias Schneider, Thilo Hagendorff

Institutions: Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam, University of Stuttgart

Language: English

Topic: Ethics and Social Impacts of AI

Subfield: Safety Research

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,690

Funders: Universität Potsdam, Universität Stuttgart