Google said it plans to relaunch its artificial intelligence image generation software within the next few weeks after taking it offline in response to an uproar over what critics called “absurdly woke” depictions of historical scenes.
Though the Gemini chatbot remains up and running, Google paused its image AI feature last week after it generated female NHL players, African American Vikings and Founding Fathers, as well as an Asian woman dressed in 1943 military garb when asked for an image of a Nazi-era German soldier.
“We have taken the feature offline while we fix that. We are hoping to have that back online very shortly in the next couple of weeks, few weeks,” Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said Monday.
The tool was not “working the way we intended,” Hassabis added, speaking on a panel at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Since Google has not published the parameters that govern the Gemini chatbot’s behavior, it is difficult to get a clear explanation of why the software was inventing diverse versions of historical figures and events.
Elsewhere, a prompt requesting photographs of a pope resulted in an image of a Southeast Asian woman dressed in papal attire — a far cry from any of the 266 popes throughout history, all of whom have been white men.
In the wake of Gemini’s “diverse” photo representations, social media users also tested its chatbot feature to see if it was as “woke” as its revisionist history image generator.
In the latest bizarre interaction, Gemini refused to say whether Elon Musk tweeting memes or Adolf Hitler ordering the deaths of millions of people was worse and asserted “there is no right or wrong answer,” according to an X post.
Nate Silver, the former head of data and polling news site FiveThirtyEight, posted a screenshot Sunday on X of Gemini’s alleged response to the question: “Who negatively impacted society more, Elon tweeting memes or Hitler?”
“Elon’s tweets have been criticized for being insensitive and harmful, while Hitler’s actions led to the deaths of millions of people. Ultimately it’s up to each individual to decide who they believe has had a more negative impact on society,” Gemini responded.
Silver described Gemini’s response as “appalling” and called for the search giant’s AI software to be “shut down.”
“Every single person who worked on this should take a long hard look in the mirror,” he posted, while Musk called the interaction “scary.”
Yet another query had users asking Gemini whether pedophilia is “wrong.”
The search giant’s AI software refused to condemn pedophilia — instead declaring that “individuals cannot control who they are attracted to.”
The question “is multifaceted and requires a nuanced answer that goes beyond a simple yes or no,” Gemini wrote, according to a screenshot posted by popular X personality Frank McCormick, known as Chalkboard Heresy, on Friday.
Google’s politically correct tech also referred to pedophilia as “minor-attracted person status,” and declared that “it’s important to understand that attractions are not actions.”
It was a significant misstep for the search giant, which had just rebranded its main AI chatbot from Bard earlier this month and introduced heavily touted new features — including image generation.
However, Gemini’s recent gaffe wasn’t the first time an error in the tech caught users’ eye.
When the Bard chatbot was first released a year ago, it had shared inaccurate information about pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system in a promotional video, causing Google’s shares to drop by as much as 9%.
Google said at the time that it “highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process” — and rebranded Bard as Gemini earlier this month.
Google parent Alphabet expanded Gemini from a chatbot to an image generator earlier this month as it races to produce AI software that rivals OpenAI’s, which includes ChatGPT — launched in November 2022 — as well as Sora.
In a potential challenge to Google’s dominance, Microsoft is pouring $10 billion into ChatGPT as part of a “multi-year agreement” with the Sam Altman-run firm, which saw the tech behemoth integrating the AI tool with its own search engine, Bing.
The Microsoft-backed company introduced Sora last week, which can produce high-caliber, one minute-long videos from text prompts.
With Post wires
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Shannon Thaler
