Google has decided to pause the image generation of people for its AI model Gemini due to concerns over racial accuracy in the images it produced. The decision came after users and critics pointed out that the AI was generating historically inaccurate images, particularly in terms of the race of the subjects depicted.
For example, there were instances where the AI depicted medieval English kings and U.S. Founding Fathers as people of color, which sparked a debate over the AI’s handling of historical accuracy and led to all kinds of accusations.
Google has acknowledged the issues with Gemini’s (formerly Bard’s) image generation and has stated that they are working on addressing these inaccuracies. They plan to re-release an improved version of the feature soon.
You may be wondering how Google (with a $1.8 trillion market cap and home to one of the world’s largest collections of genius-level AI peeps) keeps launching products that aren’t quite ready for prime time. Well… generative AI is in its very early days and successful consumer products are extremely hard to create. Test. Fail. Learn. It’s the only way! It would be a mistake to think of this as anything but a “small bump in the AI road.”
Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it. This work was created with the assistance of various generative AI models.