‘Absurdly woke’ Gemini Al image tool to relaunch in few weeks: Google

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Google plans to relaunch its artificial intelligence image-generation software within the next few weeks after going back to the drawing board following a wave of criticism about “absurdly woke” depictions of historical scenes.

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While the Gemini chatbot remains active, Google hit pause on its image feature last week after it generated female NHL players, African-American Vikings and Founding Fathers and even and Asian woman dressed in 1943 military garb when asked for an image of a Nazi-era German soldier.

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“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.

It was not immediately clear why the software was inventing diverse versions of historical figures and events.

In one bizarre interaction, Gemini refused to say whether Elon Musk tweeting memes or Adolf Hitler ordering the deaths of millions of people was worse.

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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.

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Google plans to relaunch its artificial intelligence image-generation software within the next few weeks after going back to the drawing board following a wave of criticism about “absurdly woke” depictions of historical scenes.

Article content

While the Gemini chatbot remains active, Google hit pause on its image feature last week after it generated female NHL players, African-American Vikings and Founding Fathers and even and Asian woman dressed in 1943 military garb when asked for an image of a Nazi-era German soldier.

Article content

“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.

It was not immediately clear why the software was inventing diverse versions of historical figures and events.

In one bizarre interaction, Gemini refused to say whether Elon Musk tweeting memes or Adolf Hitler ordering the deaths of millions of people was worse.

Article content

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.

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