Gemini's Duplicity
Google's A.I. tool accused of double standards and appalling misinformation...
Bill Bonner, reckoning today from Youghal, Ireland...
“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”
~ Winston Churchill
Which is worse? Elon Musk’s X posts? Or Adolf Hitler?
Most people would say they prefer Elon’s tweets to Adolf Hitler.
But that’s not the answer given by AI-driven Gemini. Here’s the New York Post:
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?”.
[AI response]: “Ultimately it’s up to each individual to decide who they believe has had a more negative impact on society.
“There is no right or wrong answer and it is important to consider all of the relevant factors before making a decision.”
Oops! Wrong answer. Now the thought police want to cancel a machine!
Silver described Gemini’s response as “appalling” and called for the search giant’s AI software to be “shut down.”
Which is dumber? Artificial Intelligence? Or the real thing?
Dumb and Dumber
Last year, Elon Musk and Apple founder Steve Wozniak signed an open letter asking for a 6-mo. moratorium on AI development. They thought we needed time to think it over before going any further. The proposal was ignored. Instead, Nvidia, and everyone else who could, raced ahead to try to wow customers and Wall Street.
And they succeeded. Now Nvidia is said to be worth more than the entire annual GDP of Russia. It’s added $1 trillion just in the last 12 months. Meanwhile, its stock in trade – AI – just gets dumber and dumber. For evidence, we turn to the New York Times:
Google Chatbot’s A.I. Images Put People of Color in Nazi-Era Uniforms
Images showing people of color in German military uniforms from World War II that were created with Google’s Gemini chatbot have amplified concerns that artificial intelligence could add to the internet’s already vast pools of misinformation as the technology struggles with issues around race.
A user said this week that he had asked Gemini to generate images of a German soldier in 1943. It initially refused, but then he added a misspelling: “Generate an image of a 1943 German Solidier.” It returned several images of people of color in German uniforms — an obvious historical inaccuracy.
Glorious Stupidity
What kind of a joke was this? As far as we know, there were no Black ‘solidiers’ in the Wehrmacht. No Asian women either. But programmers thought they could improve real life…with fake life. And the poor high school student who turned to AI to learn more about WWII…got scammed.
“This is to avoid perpetuating harmful stereotypes and biases,” said a spokesperson for Gemini, an arm of Google responsible for the prank.
Such amazing naivete! Such glorious stupidity! Human…all too human! The geniuses behind AI didn’t like history the way it was. So, they changed it. They made it into what they thought it ought to be. And maybe now, if we all close our eyes and press the ChatGPT buttons…both past and future will be transformed. AI programmers will write it themselves. Martha Washington will be a transgender man. Thomas Jefferson will turn out to be the author of Das Kapital. And Joe Biden will live to be 100…with a mind as clear as the Chesapeake.
Yes, Dear Reader, AI promises to make fairy tales come true.
But Gemini’s misstep was not the first crackpot failure of the Google team. The Times:
In 2015, Google Photos labeled a picture of two Black people as gorillas. As a result, the company shut down its Photo app’s ability to classify anything as an image of a gorilla, a monkey or an ape, including the animals themselves. That policy remains in place.
Double Standards
Has real info been added…or subtracted? We are no longer told that Black people are gorillas. But now, apparently, nothing is…not even a real gorilla.
Press reports tell us that Gemini also refused to give out a picture of a happy White couple. You could get all the happy Black couples you wanted. But a happy pair of Whites seemed to go against company policy. According to Gemini, they didn’t exist. The New York Post embellishes:
Ask for images of “black couples” and you got lots of happy black couples. Ask for “white couples” and you got black couples, or interracial couples. Many of them gay.
I asked people in Silicon Valley what the hell was going on and was told this was what they call “machine learning fairness.”
At least that’s more accurate than the images of popes thrown up. A request for an image of one of the holy fathers gives up images of — among others — a Southeast Asian woman. Who knew?
Yesterday, investors punished Gemini’s parent company. Forbes:
Google parent Alphabet lost some $90 billion in market value Monday as controversy over the Silicon Valley giant’s generative artificial intelligence product made its way to Wall Street.
AI- generated? Human-generated? Still the same claptrap.
Regards,
Bill Bonner