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Google to pause Gemini image generation of people after issues

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Re: Google to pause Gemini image generation of people after issues

#331
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Misrepresenting reality” is an interesting phrase, considering the nature of what we are discussing - artificially generated imagery. It’s really hard to get these things right: if you don’t attempt to influence the model at all, the nature of the imagery that these systems are being trained on skews towards stereotype, because a lot of our imagery is biased and stereotypical. It seems perfectly reasonable to say th…

> It seems perfectly reasonable to say that generated imagery should attempt to not lean into stereotypes and show a diverse set of people. When stereotypes clash with historical facts, facts should win. Hallucinating diversity where there was none simply sweeps historical failures under the rug. If it wants to take a situation where diversity is possible and highlight that diversity, fine. But that seems a tall orde…

>Hallucinating diversity where there was none simply sweeps historical failures under the rug.

Failures and successes. You can't get this thing to generate any white people at all, no matter how explicitly or implicitly you ask.

Re: Google to pause Gemini image generation of people after issues

#332

Google seem to be more concerned about generating images of racially diverse Nazis rather than about issues of not being able to generate white people.

tbh i think it's less a political issue than a technical/product management one what does a "board member" look like? probably you can benefit by offering more than 50 year old white man in suit. if that's what an ai trained on all human knowledge thinks, maybe we can do some adjustment what does a samurai warrior look like? probably is a little more race-related

A big question is how far from present reality should you go in depictions. If you go quite far it just looks heavy handed.

If current board members were 80% late middle aged men then shifting to, say, 60% should move society in the desired direction without being obvious and upsetting people.

Re: Google to pause Gemini image generation of people after issues

#333
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many people will never again trust Google's AI because they know Google is eager to bias the results? Seems like hyperbole. Probably literally no one is offended to the point that they will never trust google again by this. People seem determined to believe that google will fail and want google to fail; and they may; but this won’t cause it. It’ll just be a wave in the ocean. People have short memories. In 6 mo…

The real surprise is that anyone trusted google about anything in the first place.

Somebody I know trusted the google maps bicycle tour planning feature .. and had to stop a car after some unplanned hours in the australian outback sun.

Someone else who was directing me in a car via their mobile google maps told me to go through a blocked road. I said no, I cannot. "But you have to, google says so"

No, I still did not drive through a road block, despite google telling me, this is the way, but people trusted google a lot. And still do.

Re: Google to pause Gemini image generation of people after issues

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" a friend at google said he knew gemini was this bad...but couldn't say anything until today (he DMs me every few days). lots of ppl in google knew. but no one really forced the issue obv and said what needed to be said google is broken " Razib Khan, https://twitter.com/razibkhan/status/1760545472681267521

" when i was there it was so sad to me that none of the senior leadership in deepmind dared to question this ideology [...] i watched my colleagues at nvidia (like @tunguz), openai (roon), etc. who were literally doing stuff that would get you kicked out of google on a daily basis and couldn't believe how different google is " Aleksa Gordić, https://x.com/gordic_aleksa/status/1760266452475494828

Interestingly enough the same terror of political correctness seems to take center stage at Mozilla. But then it seems much less so at places like Microsoft or Apple.

I wonder if there’s a correlation with being a tech company that was founded in direct relation to the internet vs. being founded in relation to personal / enterprise computing, and how that sort of seeds the initial culture.

Re: Google to pause Gemini image generation of people after issues

#335
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all publicity is good. How many people will never again trust Google's AI because they know Google is eager to bias the results? Competitors are already pointing out that their models don't make those mistakes, so you should use them instead. Then there's the news about the original Gemini demo being faked too. This seems more likely to kill the product than help it.

> How many people will never again trust Google's AI because they know Google is eager to bias the results? Seems like hyperbole. Probably literally no one is offended to the point that they will never trust google again by this. People seem determined to believe that google will fail and want google to fail; and they may; but this won’t cause it. It’ll just be a wave in the ocean. People have short memories. In 6 mo…

I haven't trusted google since finding out they've received seed money from InQtel. Puts all their crippling algorithm changes into perspective.

Re: Google to pause Gemini image generation of people after issues

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is upset that an algorithm accidentally generated some images, they are upset that Google intentionally designed it to misrepresent reality in the name of Social Justice.

“Misrepresenting reality” is an interesting phrase, considering the nature of what we are discussing - artificially generated imagery. It’s really hard to get these things right: if you don’t attempt to influence the model at all, the nature of the imagery that these systems are being trained on skews towards stereotype, because a lot of our imagery is biased and stereotypical. It seems perfectly reasonable to say th…

It's actually not hard to get these right and these are not stereotypes.

Try these exact prompts in Midjourney and you will get exactly what you would expect.

Re: Google to pause Gemini image generation of people after issues

#338

It's amusing that the diversity-promoting prompt includes native Americans but excludes all other indigenous peoples.

It was extra hilarious when asked to generate a picture of ancient Greek philosopher it made it a Native American. Because it is well known Greeks not only had contact with the new world but also had prominent population of Native Americans. It really wants to mash the whole world to a very specific US centric view of the world, and calls you bad for trying to avoid it.

That is not artificial intelligence, that is deliberate mucking with the software to achieve a desired outcome. Google is utterly untrustworthy in this regard.

Re: Google to pause Gemini image generation of people after issues

#339
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Misrepresenting reality” is an interesting phrase, considering the nature of what we are discussing - artificially generated imagery. It’s really hard to get these things right: if you don’t attempt to influence the model at all, the nature of the imagery that these systems are being trained on skews towards stereotype, because a lot of our imagery is biased and stereotypical. It seems perfectly reasonable to say th…

> It seems perfectly reasonable to say that generated imagery should attempt to not lean into stereotypes and show a diverse set of people. When stereotypes clash with historical facts, facts should win. Hallucinating diversity where there was none simply sweeps historical failures under the rug. If it wants to take a situation where diversity is possible and highlight that diversity, fine. But that seems a tall orde…

I think the root problem is assuming that these generated images are representations of anything.

Nobody should.

They’re literally semi-random graphic artifacts that we humans give 100% of the meaning to.

Re: Google to pause Gemini image generation of people after issues

#340

That may also be a way to generate attention/visibility for Gemini considering that they are not seen as the leader in AI anymore? Attention is all you need.

The idea that “attention is all you need” here is a handwavy explanation that doesn’t hold up against basic scrutiny. Why would Google do something this embarrassing? What could they possibly stand to gain? Google has plenty of attention as it is. They have far more to lose. Not everything has to be a conspiracy.

> conspiracy.

Well, I guess this thread needed one more trigger label then.

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