Facing bias accusations, Google this week was forced to pause the image generation portion of Gemini, its generative AI model. The temporary suspension follows backlash from users who criticized it for allegedly placing too much emphasis on ethnic diversity, sometimes at the expense of accuracy. Prior to Google pausing services, Gemini was found producing racially diverse depictions of World War II-era Nazis, Viking warriors, the US Founding Fathers, and other historically white figures.
loving google’s ongoing commitment to diversity here pic.twitter.com/kexIJImB2D
— pagliacci the hated 🌝 (@Slatzism) February 21, 2024
I asked it to generate images of the King of England the other day 🤣 pic.twitter.com/NEOqDELwmz
— Alexander Leishman 🇺🇸 (@Leishman) February 20, 2024
In a statement released Wednesday, Google said Gemini’s image generation capabilities were “missing the mark” and said it was “working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately.” Google then suspended access to the image generation tools altogether on Thursday morning and said it would release a new version of the model soon. Gemini refused to generate any images when PopSci tested the service Thursday morning, instead stating: “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.” As of this writing, Gemini is still down. Google directed PopSci to its latest statement when reached for comment.
Gemini’s image generations draw complaints
Google officially began rolling out its image generation tools in Gemini earlier this month but controversy over its non-white depictions heated up this week. Users on X, formerly Twitter, began sharing screenshots of examples where Gemini reportedly generated images of nonwhite people when specifically prompted to depict a white person. In other cases, Gemini reportedly appeared to…
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