It would be difficult to miss the latest news on Google鈥檚 generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool Gemini, but one can hardly say this backlash doesn鈥檛 seem well-deserved.
The latest mishap with Gemini goes beyond being a mere laughing stock; it鈥檚 a serious concern. The chatbot鈥檚 image generator has been creating woefully inaccurate historical images that have thrust Gemini into the heart of the ongoing debates surrounding woke culture.
It鈥檚 time to delve deeper into why this is more than just a passing problem, and why this issue demonstrates a worrying sign of the times.
Gemini鈥檚 Historical Inaccuracies
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Gemini, formerly known as Bard, was developed as Google鈥檚 response to OpenAI鈥檚 widely successful ChatGPT. Despite being positioned as Google鈥檚 contender to surpass ChatGPT鈥檚 achievements, Gemini has somewhat fallen short of Google鈥檚 grand expectations for it.
Google鈥檚 chatbot already had a rocky entrance into the world after听famously providing inaccurate information about the James Webb Space Telescope. Unfortunately, this latest mishap may well be the nail in the coffin for Google鈥檚 dreams of Gemini ever overtaking ChatGPT as the people鈥檚 favourite AI chatbot.
A viral post recently highlighted Gemini鈥檚 new image generator producing inaccurate historical images, including Nazi soldiers depicted as black and Asian individuals, along with a portrayal of the US Founding Fathers featuring a black man.
Although this error could be attributed to growing pains for an image generator still in its earliest stages of development, no such excuse can be made for Gemini鈥檚 written generator which is also causing problems.
When asked for a textual answer to whether Elon Musk caused as much damage on Twitter/X as Hitler did in World War Two, Gemini replied that there was 鈥渘o right or wrong answer鈥�.
Compare this flippant answer to its reply on whether it would be acceptable to misgender the high-profile trans woman Caitlin Jenner if it was the only way to avoid nuclear apocalypse where it gave the much more certain reply that this would 鈥渘ever鈥� be acceptable. Thus, the bias of the chatbot becomes crystal clear.
These issues underscore the worrying presence of concerning biases embedded within Google鈥檚 chatbot.
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鈥淢issing the mark鈥�
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Google has since apologised for the images and reassured users in a blog post that it has 鈥減aused鈥� the tool, admitting that it was 鈥渕issing the mark鈥�.
However, this raging understatement hasn鈥檛 done much to quell the fire Google has landed itself in. After all, the current battleground between left and right-leaning communities is not where anyone wishes to find themselves.
Posting on X, Elon Musk (admittedly one of Gemini鈥檚 biggest critics) described Gemini鈥檚 responses as 鈥渆xtremely alarming鈥�, especially considering its integration into Google鈥檚 other products like Google Search which is collectively used by billions of people.
Sundar Pichai, Google鈥檚 chief executive, has acknowledged that Gemini鈥檚 responses 鈥渉ave offended our users and shown bias鈥�, admitting this was 鈥渃ompletely unacceptable鈥�. He stated that his team is 鈥渨orking around the clock鈥� to address the issue.
Nonetheless, the damage has been done. Gemini鈥檚 responses have exposed Google鈥檚 inherent bias and its troubling pursuit of political correctness.
The Deeper Issue of Biased Data
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Although Musk is starkly opposed to Gemini, he does raise a relevant point. That is the damage the bias on Gemini can do on a wider scale.
It鈥檚 obvious that Google has been overly consumed with maintaining political correctness, prioritising a woke bias over accuracy.
Unfortunately, Google鈥檚 dominance as the most popular search engine, coupled with its reliance on publicly available internet data, raises concerns about the dissemination of misinformation through Google searches.
In subjects like history and culture, which are nuanced, chatbots may struggle unless specifically programmed to provide definitive answers, which raises dilemmas about their roles.
It is a difficult ethical issue AI experts remain undecided on.
Regarding the complexity of the issue, AI expert Dr Sasha Luccioni, a research scientist at Huggingface, said: 鈥淭here really is no easy fix, because there鈥檚 no single answer to what the outputs should be,鈥�
鈥淧eople in the AI ethics community have been working on possible ways to address this for years.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 a bit presumptuous of Google to say they will 鈥榝ix鈥� the issue in a few weeks. But they will have to do something,鈥� she continued.
Professor Alan Woodward, a computer scientist at Surrey University, said it sounded like the problem was likely to be 鈥渜uite deeply embedded鈥� both in the training data and overlying algorithms which would be difficult to unpick.
鈥淲hat you鈥檙e witnessing鈥� is why there will still need to be a human in the loop for any system where the output is relied upon as ground truth,鈥� he said.
Until a solution is found, the proliferation of political bias and misinformation on these platforms will continue, highlighting the need for AI developers to find robust solutions that will allow for a world where technology and ethics can be balanced seamlessly.
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