After Google’s generative AI tool Gemini has sparked controversy with historically incorrect images like racially diverse Nazis, CEO of Google Sundar Pichai addressed the app’s response in a note to Google employees and called the responses “unacceptable.”
“I know some of the responses have offended our users and demonstrated bias – to be clear, this is completely unacceptable and we misunderstood each other,” Pichai said behind schedule Tuesday in a note reported by Semafor.
Pichai said the company is “working around the clock” to resolve the Gemini issues and is “already seeing significant improvements across a wide range of prompts.”
“No AI is perfect, especially at this emerging stage of the industry, but we know the bar is high for us and we will keep it high for as long as necessary,” Pichai said, adding that Google will “review what happened and make sure we fix it at scale.”
Last week, Google said it would discontinue its AI model’s ability to generate images of people after that users began pointing out historically incorrect images of generations of people — including racially diverse Nazi-era German soldiers — as well as Gemini, who seemingly dodge requests for photos of white people.
“Gemini’s AI image generation generates a wide range of people.” Google said in a statement before pausing the application. “And overall, it’s a good thing because people all over the world utilize it. But that sign is missing here.”
Jack Krawczyk, product leader at Gemini, also app issues have been resolved last week, drawing attention to broader issues of AI bias that already exist in terms of generating images of people of color.
“As part of our AI principles, we design our image generation capabilities to reflect our global user base, and we take representation and bias seriously,” Krawczyk wrote. “There is more nuance to historical contexts and we will continue to adapt to account for this. “
Image generation capabilities have been added to the Google Bard chatbot — the company’s response to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus — in early February. The bard was then renamed Gemini.
