Google suspends Gemini from making AI images of people after a backlash complaining it was ‘woke’::After users complained Google’s Gemini had gone “woke,” the company said it will pause the image-generating feature of people while working on fixes.
Google suspends Gemini from making AI images of people after a backlash complaining it was ‘woke’::After users complained Google’s Gemini had gone “woke,” the company said it will pause the image-generating feature of people while working on fixes.
I mean, they went out of their way to generate black Popes
Probably not what you want
If you asked it to show you a picture of a Caucasian pope, you got a lecture. If you then tried to make it generate a Caucasian pope, it first failed, and then refused claiming it won’t create imaged based on certain race or ethnicity.
So yeah, that’s going a bit too far. This twitter thread is full of weird examples.
That thread is some wild shit. Certainly makes me stop and think about some things. Which is good.
So like, what’s wrong with showing a black Pope? Why should we assume hypothetical Popes can’t be black? Pope Francis appointed the first black cardinal, Wilton Daniel Gregory. It’s bound to happen one day. And I don’t think it hurts for people to be presented with that possibility. I think that’s good. Of course the Catholic church is problematic but this isn’t about that. Like, asking for a pic of someone in a position of power should absolutely show diverse people.
But like… In terms of historical accuracy it seems just as insane to show ethnically diverse Vikings as it would be to show ethnically diverse Mongols, Cheyenne, Zulus, Bolsheviks, etc. Right? Now if I ask for pics of fantasy-world Vikings (etc) then go for it.
Asking for a scientist in his lab…yeah I’m ok with AI going, “fuck you, women can be scientists too, sexist asshole.” 😆 Is it truly necessary to reflect someone’s bias back at them? And so what if it shows all women? If it does, now the men asking know how it feels to feel unrepresented. (It might be problematic if men are never, ever, ever shown no matter hoe many times you ask).
Speaking of, I can imagine it would be fucking annoying for my identity to be ignored by AI. More of the same shit after years of being underrepresented everywhere else, right? So hey great, don’t fall into the trap of training the AI on biased data and having it spit out biased results.
Of course …elves and pixies and gnomes apparently are all white… Smh.
Imagine growing up in a world where comics and media and everything else never shows anyone like you. Fuck that. That’s fucking dumb. And boring. Show me different people. I like different people.
But this Gemini thing? I mean ok, It’s good they tried to be more inclusive. But I think they did it kind of ham-handedly. They need to go back and think about this quite a bit harder. It feels like a forced afterthought. It’s giving “oh, shit, everyone is white, quick, slap some diversity on it so we don’t get in trouble” vibes.