As artificial intelligence becomes an increasingly central tool for cultural storytelling, its limitations remain stark, especially when the subject is Black history.

The recent unveiling of OpenAI’s new GPT‑4o render engine brings promise for photorealistic image generation, but the technology continues to struggle with issues of racial bias and cultural sensitivity, as seen in a recent attempt to recreate the likeness of Ezekiel Gillespie, Wisconsin’s pioneering Black civil rights leader.

The project by Milwaukee Independent in March used ChatGPT’s Dall-E to restore a dignified and historically faithful portrait of Gillespie, whose birthday falls on May 31, was both a technical challenge and a test of ethical design. It also served as a reminder that even the most advanced AI systems

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