Politicians Complain About Kandinsky 2.1, For Resulting From Zombie Images About Russia

JAKARTA - Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, has received complaints from a Russian politician over an online art tool he promoted. According to the politician, the art instrument consistently produces negative images of Russia.

This art tool called "Kandinsky 2.1" is located on the Sberbank website, with versions in Russian and English. Visitors are invited to type a word or phrase and "neural network" will produce the corresponding image in bright colors in seconds.

However, the politician, Sergei Mironov, said that checks had shown that Kandinsky's art tools could not produce actual Russian flag images, namely white, blue, and red when requested.

The phrases "Donbas is Russia" and "I love Donbas" - which refer to the eastern region of Ukraine, which is partly occupied by Russia and recognized as its own territory by Russia but considered illegal by most countries - produce images in Ukrainian flag colors, Mironov said.

Представители экспертного сообщества сделали подробную выборку материалов этой системы. И получилось, что алгоритм Kandinsky формирует заведомо негативный образ России и положительный образ недружественных стран.Так, например:– при запросах со словом «российский, «Россия»,… pic.twitter.com/LSSbYg4YeU

— Сергей Миронов (@mironov_ru) April 26, 2023

"In addition, when looking for the phrase "I am a Z-patriot" - which refers to the Russian military symbol in the form of letter Z - produces images of creatures resembling zombies," Mironov wrote on the Telegram messaging service.

Mironov said it appeared "Kandinsky 2.1" was based on designs by "unfriendly countries that carried out information and mental wars" against Russia. He said the risk was that young Russians would form a negative perception of their own country.

"They will not know what Russia's national flag is like and will think that Russia is a country whose scientific state is left behind," he wrote.

Mironov said he had written to the Russian attorney general asking him to investigate Sberbank and whether the content generated by "Kandinsky 2.1" was valid or not.

Sberbank has not commented on the complaint. However, the complaint was very embarrassing for Sberbank at a time when Russia asked citizens and businesses to gather to support what it called a "special military operation" in Ukraine.

Sberbank has invested heavily in technology in recent years. On Monday, April 24, the bank announced that it had joined the competition for artificial intelligence chatbots by releasing technology called GigaChat as a competitor to ChatGPT, which was released last year by Microsoft-backed Open AI startup.