Onion Man, or How AI Makes Mistakes

Here’s a look at four possible reasons offered by people on the internet for why the guy in the AI-generated meme below is holding three onions. I don’t know if any of them are right, but each offers a clue into the way AI-generated content is entering into the internet’s bloodstream, and the ways people are evaluating it, explaining it, and coming to understand its possible consequences.

1. Pop Psychology SEO Gunk

2. Algorithmic Racism

3. AI Models Don’t Understand Nuance

4. He Asked It To Make Onions

Onion Man is a relatively minor meme from November of 2023 (Know Your Meme entry here ). It might be more accurate to say it was a “discourse”: the image was widely quote-posted, discussed, and joked about on Twitter, mostly by people saying AI art was ridiculous. Viewers noticed the extra fingers and missing thumbs on this sad-eyed man’s many hands — but most of all they noticed his onions.

If the image is a representation of a modern man juggling many responsibilities — house, children, pregnant wife …