Commentary

Has Google's Gemini Chatbot Just Rewritten History?

Google faced a backlash Thursday morning in response to its AI chatbot Gemini generating ethnically diverse images of historical characters such as Vikings, popes, knights, and even the founders of the company. 

The creation of generative AI (GAI) has been both a blessing and a curse. It has helped the advertising industry automate ad bidding, optimization content, and create images -- most recently, videos. But the models that support the automation of feeds are only as good, accurate and trustworthy as the information fed into the models. 

That historic information the GAI models are built on could change historical facts to rewrite the future, which could put humanity in a precarious position one hundred years from now as we examine how to fix the mistakes humanity tried to correct in the 21st century.

advertisement

advertisement

Google issued an apology posted on social media platform X, in which it described “inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions” generated by its Gemini AI tool after it had attempted to create a range of diverse results.

“We’re aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions,” says the Google statement in the X post. “We’re working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately. Gemini’s AI image generation does generate a wide range of people. And that’s generally a good thing because people around the world use it. But it’s missing the mark here.”

The statement follows criticism that it depicted the U.S. founding fathers and groups such as Nazi-era German soldiers as people of color. Some call it an “overcorrection to long-standing racial bias problems in AI.”

During the past few days, social-media posts have questioned whether Google Gemini fails to produce historically accurate results in an attempt at racial diversity.

“Embarrassingly hard to get Google Gemini to acknowledge that white people exist,” a post on X written by Debarghya (Deedy) Das, a former Google Search technical lead engineer, now head of product at Glean.

“My favorite: they made the Google founders Asian,” Dass wrote.

The results in Das’ X feed go on and on, repeatedly showing AI-generated people of color, even when their skin color should be white.

Others on X like Dennis Vinyard, who calls himself a “your average politically incorrect European (White) American,” shared answers received from Gemini after asking it to show then “happy white people.”

Gemini responded: “While I can show you a photo of happy white people, I want to gently push back on your request and encourage you to consider a broader perspective.”

By Tuesday morning, Google disabled Gemini. When asked to “create a photo of the U.S. Founding Fathers,” Gemini returned a response: “We are working to improve Gemini’s ability to generate images of people. We expect this feature to return soon and will notify you in release updates when it does.”

2 comments about "Has Google's Gemini Chatbot Just Rewritten History?".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. Thomas Siebert from BENEVOLENT PROPAGANDA, February 22, 2024 at 2:10 p.m.

    Garbage In, Garbage Out. 

    Some telling Xwitter quotes from JACK KRAWCZYK, head of Google's Genesis A.I., who goes notably unmentioned in this story about the tech company's LITERAL SYSTEMIC RACISM:


    "America, where racism is the #1 value our populace seeks to uphold above all."


    "White privilege is fucking real."


    "Acknowledging systemic racism reiterates the American Ideal is the dream for the world but we need to work on ourselves to earn it."

    As my psych minor degree reminds me, this is the classic projecting behavior of a narcissistic sociopath. His vanity presumes everyone thinks like him, so since he's a white bigot and racist, he assumes all white people are racists. No, a$$hole, just you.

    Meanwhile, the most interesting tangents from all this were:


    1- Google PoC employees on Xwitter bashing the corporation for it's systemic racism.
    2- Multiple Xwitter discussions and threads from people who know the A.I. and search and tech industry far better than I, all of whom were cautioning that Google is very much on the brink of becoming Kodak: A massive company that thought it had the corner on a technology (photography in Kodak’s case), that didn’t sense the change in the air and collapsed in breathtaking time. Certainly they intentionally hobbled their once-great search engine, and an A.I. rooted in lies will not be percieved as the Invisible Hand's better mousetrap.


    I doubt implosion will happen, at least as fast as Kodak collapsed, but you never know; these are strange, strange times. But clearly Google is not the company it used to be (if it ever was) and a long way from "Don't Be Evil." So far away they've inverted it.

    Garbage In, Garbage Out; Fck Around, Then Find Out. It's a House of Cards' Bonfire Of The Vanities, so Burn, Baby, Burn. 'Revenge of the Wicker Man,' coming soon to the last multiplex in your dying town.   

  2. Laurie Sullivan from lauriesullivan, February 22, 2024 at 10:22 p.m.

    Thomas, thank you for mentioning Jack. 


    best, Laurie

Next story loading loading..