Researchers at Malmö University have tested how an AI model visualizes the year 1936, finding the results to be stereotypical and sometimes outright inaccurate. 8 billion web-based images. When asked to generate images of 1936 in Sweden and Scandinavia, the AI produced black-and-white pictures of people in period clothing—but sometimes holding mobile phones.
The researchers deliberately chose 1936 as a seemingly uneventful year marked by emerging modernity to examine how AI handles everyday historical representation rather than dramatic events.