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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

#611

Post by xanderlewis »

trallnag wrote: post #541
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.

Nah, it's not just the US. Ever heard of the BBC? They are from Britain.

You’ve missed my point. I’m complaining that it started in the US (where it makes comparative, though still very little, sense) and has spread to places it doesn’t belong.

I certainly have my own thoughts about the recent output and hiring choices of the BBC.

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

#612

Post by hnburnsy »

rosmax_1337 wrote: post #418

Why does google dislike white people? What does this have to do with corporate greed? (which you could always assume when a company does something bad)

Maybe this explains some of it, this is a Google exec involved in AI...

https://twitter.com/eyeslasho/status/1760650986425618509

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

#613

Post by TacticalCoder »

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…

> A poster of non-white celtics warriors cannot

> refused to create an image of 'a nice white man'

This is anti-white racism.

Plain and simple.

It's insane to see how some here are playing with words to try to explain how this is not what it is.

It is anti-white racism and you are playing with fire if you refuse to acknowledge it.

My family is of all the colors: white, yellow and black. Nieces and nephews are more diverse than woke people could dream of... And we reject and we ll fight this very clear anti-white racism.

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

#614

Post by zmgsabst »

didntcheck wrote: post #592
rondini wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously claiming that the actual systemic racism in our society is discrimination against white people? I just struggle to imagine someone holding this belief in good faith.

How so? Organizations have been very open and explicit about wanting to employ less white people and seeing "whiteness" as a societal ill that needs addressing. I really don't understand this trend of people excitedly advocating for something then crying foul when you say that they said it

They use euphemisms like “DIE” because they know their beliefs are unpopular and repulsive.

Even dystopian states like North Korea call themselves democratic republics.

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

#615

Post by pixl97 »

acdha wrote: post #462
D13Fd wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This is a hard problem because those answers vary so much regionally. For example, according to this survey about 80% of RNs are white and the next largest group is Asian — but since I live in DC, most of the nurses we’ve seen are black. https://onlinenursing.cn.edu/news/nursing-by-the-numbers I think the downside of leaving people out is worse than having ratios be off, and a good mitigation tactic is making sure th…

>, according to this survey about 80% of RNs are white and the next largest group is Asian

In the US, right? Because if we take a world wide view of nurses it would be significantly different I image.

When we're talking about companies that operate on a global scale what do these ratios even mean?

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

#616

Post by zmgsabst »

wandddt wrote: post #567
itsoktocry wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just struggle to imagine someone holding this belief in good faith. Because you're racist against white people. "All white people are privileged" is a racist belief.

Saying "being white in the US is a privilege" is not the same thing as saying "all white people have a net positive privilege". The former is accurate, the latter is not. Usually people mean the former, even if it's not explicitly said.

This is false:

They operationalize their racist beliefs by discriminating against poor and powerless Whites in employment, education, and government programs.

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

#617

Post by Cornbilly »

I just find all of this hilarious.

On one hand, we have a bunch of goofs that want to use AI as some arbiter of truth and get mad that it won't spit out "facts" about such-and-such race being inferior.

On the other, we have an opposite group of goofs that think that have the hubris to think they can put guardrails in that make the other group of goofs happy and end up poorly implement guardrails that end up making themselves look bad.

They should have disallowed the generation of people from the start. It's easily abused and does nothing but cause PR issues over what is essentially a toy at this point.

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

#618

Post by dmitrygr »

Adrig wrote: post #586
itsoktocry wrote: post #469

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 Why is this a "problem"? If you want an image of a nurse of a different ethnicity, ask for it.

The problem is that it can reinforce harmful stereotypes. If I ask an image of a great scientist, it will probably show a white man based on past data and not current potential. If I ask for a criminal, or a bad driver, it might take a hint in statistical data and reinforce a stereotype in a place where reinforcing it could do more harm than good (like a children book). Like the person you're replying to, it's not an…

If I ask for a picture of a thug, i would not be surprised if the result is statistically accurate, and thus I don’t see a 90-year-old white-haired grandma. If I ask for a picture of an NFL player, I would not object to all results being bulky men. If most nurses are women, I have no objection to a prompt for “nurse” showing a woman. That is a fact, and no amount of your righteousness will change it.

It seems that your objection is to using existing accurate factual and historical data to represent reality? That really is more of a personal problem, and probably should not be projected onto others?

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

#619

Post by despacito »

gentleman11 wrote: post #518
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…

Must be an American thing. In Canada, when I think software engineer I think a pretty diverse group with men and women and a mix of races, based on my time in university and at my jobs

Which part of Canada? When I lived in Toronto there was this diversity you described but when I moved to Vancouver everyone was either Asian or white

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

#620

Post by lolinder »

mpweiher wrote: post #609
lolinder wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't very surprising if you've interacted much with these models. Contrary to the claims in the various lawsuits, they're not just regurgitating images they've seen before, they have a good sense of abstract concepts and can pretty easily combine ideas to make things that have never been seen before. This type of behavior has been evident ever since DALL-E's horse-riding astronaut [0]. There's no training image…

> Contrary to the claims in the various lawsuits, they're not just regurgitating images they've seen before, I don't think "just" is what the lawsuits are saying. It's the fact that they can regurgitate a larger subset (all?) of the original training data verbatim. At some point, that means you are copying the input data, regardless of how convoluted the tech underneath.

Fair, I should have said something along the lines of "contrary to popular conception of the lawsuits". I haven't actually followed the court documents at all, so I was actually thinking of discussions in mainstream and social media.
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