The decline of colour in consumer products mirrors a troubling trend in AI, where bias and homogenisation threaten intellectual diversity, societal fairness, and the integrity of human knowledge itself, says Lewis Liu

This week we’re getting a new family car. When my wife texted me the website showing color choices, I texted back, “I cannot tell the difference; it’s all the same”. In fact, cars that are not grayscale – that is, not black, gray, silver, and white – have halved from 40 per cent in 2005 to just 20 per cent last year.

The collapse of color in man-made objects is well documented across multiple studies, from clothes to teapots to cars. Looking at underlying sociological factors, the most prominent explanation is that neutral-colored products appeal to a larger audience, and hence more neutral products are produced, feeding into the cycle. Auto analyst Karl Brauer captures this perfectly: “If you think about it, if everyone is doing that, then all of these gray, black, white, and silver cars aren’t reflecting what everyone wants, they’re reflecting what dealers and consumers think everyone wants.”

So we’re losing our color, but what does this have to do with AI?

Sadly, the same phenomenon could afflict AI and, by extension, our collective knowledge base as a species. The impact would be far more devastating to our civilization than merely living in a monochrome world.

First, let’s talk about today’s AI models. They are extremely powerful (a topic I’ve covered extensively in other columns), but they are also inherently biased. AI safety experts have flagged “AI bias” as an issue, but I believe the community has done a poor job describing why and how these biases occur. In fact, generative........

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