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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

#491

Post by andsoitis »

busterarm wrote: post #308
xanderlewis wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because almost all of this is a distinctly American obsession and problem. Unfortunately it’s gleefully been exported worldwide into contexts where it doesn’t immediately — if at all — apply over the last five years or so and now we’re all saddled with this slow-growing infection. Entire careers are built on the sort of thing that led Google to this place, and they’re not gonna give up easily.

While I mostly agree with you, I just want to point out that the UK, Canada and Australia have this illness as well. What was an American problem has become an Anglophone problem.

> What was an American problem has become an Anglophone problem.

Memetic virulence.

But maybe it is also puncturaing through the language and cultural membranes, as evidenced by things like this material from a Dutch university: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/about-um/diversity-inclu...

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

#492

Post by rsynnott »

Aurornis wrote: post #417
empath-nirvana wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an _actual problem_ that needs to be solved. If you ask generative AI for a picture of a "nurse", it will produce a picture of a white woman 100% of the time, without some additional prompting or fine tuning that encourages it to do something else. If you ask a generative AI for a picture of a "software engineer", it will produce a picture of a white guy 100% of the time, without some additional prompting or…

> If you ask generative AI for a picture of a "nurse", it will produce a picture of a white woman 100% of the time, without some additional prompting or fine tuning that encourages it to do something else. > If you ask a generative AI for a picture of a "software engineer", it will produce a picture of a white guy 100% of the time, without some additional prompting or fine tuning that encourages it to do something el…

Note:

> without some additional prompting or fine tuning that encourages it to do something else.

That tuning has been done for all major current models, I think? Certainly, early image generation models _did_ have issues in this direction.

EDIT: If you think about it, it's clear that this is necessary; a model which only ever produces the average/most likely thing based on its training dataset will produce extremely boring and misleading output (and the problem will compound as its output gets fed into other models...).

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

#493

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

stronglikedan wrote: post #487
34679 wrote: post #277

Here's the problem for Google: Gemini pukes out a perfect visual representation of actual systemic racism that pervades throughout modern corporate culture in the US. Daily interactions can be masked by platitudes and dog whistles. A poster of non-white celtic warriors cannot. Gemini refused to create an image of "a nice white man", saying it was "too spicy", but had no problem when asked for an image of "a nice blac…

> actual systemic racism That's a bogeyman. There's racism for sure, especially since 44 greatly rejuvenated it during his term, but it's far from systematic.

DEI isn't systemic? It's racism as part of a system.

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

#494

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

reddalo wrote: post #470
t0bia_s wrote: post #399

Google has similar issue as when you search for images of "white couple" - half of results are not a white couple. https://www.google.com/search?q=white+couple&tbm=isch

WTF that's disgusting, they're actively manipulating information. If you write "black couple" you only get actual black couples.

This is conspiratorial thinking.

If I'm looking for stock photos, the default "couple" is probably going to be a white couple. They'll just label images with "black couple" so people can be more specific.

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

#495

Post by CoastalCoder »

vidarh wrote: post #428
wakawaka28 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so stubborn it generated pictures of diverse Nazis, and that's what I saw a liberal rag leading with. In fact it is almost impossible to get a picture of a white person out of it.

And as someone far to the left of a US style "liberal", that is equally offensive and racist as only generating white people. Injecting fake diversity into situations where it is historically inaccurate is just as big a problem as erasing diversity where it exists. The Nazi example is stark, and perhaps too stark, in that spreading fake notions of what they look like seems ridiculous now, but there are more borderlin…

I think you hit on an another important issue:

Do people want the generated images to be representative, or aspirational?

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

#496

Post by prometheus76 »

imgabe wrote: post #124
sycamoretrees wrote: post #22

why are we using image generators to represent actual history? If we want accuracy surely we can use actual documents that are not imagined by a bunch of code. If you want to write fanfic or whatever then just adjust the prompt

I don't know what you mean by "represent actual history". I don't think anyone believes that AI output is supposed to replace first-party historical sources. But we are trying to create a tool where we can ask it questions and it gives us answers. It would be nice if it tried to make the answers accurate.

To which they reply "well you weren't actually there and this is art so there are no rules." It's all so tiresome.

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

#497

Post by jibe »

empath-nirvana wrote: post #387
34679 wrote: post #277

Here's the problem for Google: Gemini pukes out a perfect visual representation of actual systemic racism that pervades throughout modern corporate culture in the US. Daily interactions can be masked by platitudes and dog whistles. A poster of non-white celtic warriors cannot. Gemini refused to create an image of "a nice white man", saying it was "too spicy", but had no problem when asked for an image of "a nice blac…

There is an _actual problem_ that needs to be solved. If you ask generative AI for a picture of a "nurse", it will produce a picture of a white woman 100% of the time, without some additional prompting or fine tuning that encourages it to do something else. If you ask a generative AI for a picture of a "software engineer", it will produce a picture of a white guy 100% of the time, without some additional prompting or…

I am not sure it's possible to solve this problem without allowing the user to control it

The problem is rooted in insisting on taking control from users and providing safe results. I understand that giving up control will lead to misuse, but the “protection” is so invasive that it can make the whole thing miserable to use.

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

#498

Post by wazoox »

oceanplexian wrote: post #215
Jensson wrote: post #139

> Of course the politically sensitive people are waging war over it. Just like politically sensitive people waged war over Google identifying an obscured person as a Gorilla. Its just a silly mistake, how could anyone get upset over that?

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.

Depicting Black or Asian or native American people as Nazis is hardly "Social Justice" if you ask me but hey, what do I know :)

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

#499

Post by itsoktocry »

willsmith72 wrote: post #37
WatchDog wrote: post #21

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

>what does a "board member" look like? probably you can benefit by offering more than 50 year old white man in suit.

I don't understand your argument; if that's what the LLM produces, that's what it produces. It's not like it's thinking about intentionally perpetuating stereotypes.

By the way, it has no issue with churning out white men in suits when you go with a negative prompt.

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

#500

Post by Xirgil »

_cenw wrote: post #116
_bohm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s being politically sensitive to assert that this was obviously the intent of Google and that it demonstrates that they’re wholly consumed by the woke mind virus, or whatever, as many commenters have done. The sensible alternative explanation is that this issue is an overcorrection made in an attempt to address well-documented biases these models have when not fine tuned.

"woke mind virus" should be an automatic ban from this site, it's a thought terminating cliche so strong, any semblance of "converse curiously" is immediately thrown out the window, into a well, down into hell, bouncing around the back of the flat earth

"Mind Virus" is loaded and inflammatory, but "woke" is the result of people noticing a large and highly influential social movement that refuses to name itself and chafes against any outside attempt to do so. You can't have a movement that important without a name.

https://web.archive.org/web/20211108155321/https://freddiede...

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