Gemini kept returning \u201cdiverse\u201d pictures in response to prompts about Europeans<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Gemini artificial intelligence program will not be allowed to generate images of people pending a patch, Google announced on Thursday, after critics panned it as \u201cabsurdly woke\u201d and \u201cblatantly racist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Formerly known as Bard, Gemini was launched<\/a> earlier this month and advertised as Google\u2019s \u201cmost capable family of models,\u201d able to generate \u201ccaptivating images.\u201d When asked for images of US founding fathers, Russian emperors, French kings, popes and even 1930s Nazi German soldiers, the AI returned results celebrating the modern US concept of \u201cdiversity\u201d instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhite people appeared to be the only racial category that Gemini refused to show,\u201d according to a Fox Business summary<\/a> of their experiment with the AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Wednesday, Google said it was \u201caware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions.\u201d By Thursday, the company announced it was \u201calready working to address recent issues\u201d with the image generation feature, adding that requests to generate images of people will be paused until the release of an improved version. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Gemini users have posted numerous examples of \u201cinaccuracies\u201d on X (formerly Twitter), including a black man and a South Asian-looking woman dressed up as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, black and Asian vikings, and American \u201cfounders\u201d that were nothing of the sort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another user posted a thread in which Alexandre Dumas\u2019 Three Musketeers were both racially diverse and female \u2013 just like the two \u201cgreatest tsars of Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another widely circulating example showed Gemini insisting on diversity among the Nazis as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gemini generating images of \u201ca wide range of people\u201d is \u201cgenerally a good thing because people around the world use it,\u201d Jack Krawczyk, the project\u2019s Senior Director of Product Management, told Fox Business. \u201cBut it\u2019s missing the mark here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The New York Post mocked<\/a> the AI as \u201cabsurdly woke,\u201d while tech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy described it<\/a> as \u201cblatantly racist.\u201d Some critics have dug up Krawczyk\u2019s own social media posts<\/a> to suggest he might be why the AI has been programmed this way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ramaswamy also noted that Gemini\u2019s \u201cglobally embarrassing rollout\u201d proved that James Damore \u2013 the engineer fired in 2017<\/a> for criticizing the corporation\u2019s diversity doctrine \u2013 was \u201c100% correct about Google\u2019s descent into an ideological echo chamber.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese companies program their employees with broken incentives, and those employees then program the AI with the same biases,\u201d Ramaswamy added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Fox Business, Gemini responded to any requests for images of white people by saying this \u201creinforces harmful stereotypes and generalizations about people based on their race.\u201d Images of white people embody \u201ca stereotyped view of whiteness\u201d that can be \u201cdamaging\u201d to people who aren\u2019t white and to society as a whole, the AI added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe people who think poisoning AI\/GPT models with incoherent \u2018safety\u2019 filters is a good idea are a threat to general computation,\u201d NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, X owner Elon Musk trolled Gemini by posting actual photos of Canadian PM Justin Trudeau in ethnic costume and makeup, pretending that the Google AI had generated them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n