Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google to pause Gemini image generation of people after issues

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

651–660 of 1001 posts

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

#651

Post by lupusreal »

romanovcode wrote: post #521
rosmax_1337 wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is a "lack of diversity" a problem? Do different races have different attributes which complement each other on a team?

> Do different races have different attributes which complement each other on a team? Actually, no. In reality diversity is hindering progress since humans are not far from apes and really like inclusivity and tribalism. We sure do like to pretend it does tho.

Amazon considers an ethnicly homogenous workforce as a unionization threat. Ethnic diversity is seen as reducing the risk of unionization because diverse workers have a harder time relating to each other.

I think this partially explains why corporations are so keen on diversity. The other part is decision makers in the corporation being true believers in the virtue of diversity. These complement each other; the best people to drive cynically motivated diversity agendas are people who really do believe they're doing the right thing.

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

#652

Post by dig1 »

vidarh wrote: post #432
jack_riminton wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of when black people in the UK get called African American by Americans. No they're neither African nor American It's an incredibly self-centered view of the world

My black African ex once chewed out an American who not only called her African American but "corrected her" after she referred to herself as black, in a very clear British received pronunciation accent that has no hint of American to it, by insisting it was "African American". And not while in the US either - but in the UK.

This reminds me of a YouTube video from a black female from the US, where she argued that Montenegro sounds too racist. Yet, that name existed way before the US was conceived.

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

#653

Post by merrywhether »

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…

What if the AI explicitly required users to include the desired race of any prompt generating humans? More than allowing the user to control it, force the user to control it. We don't like image of our biases that the mirror of AI is showing us, so it seems like the best answer is stop arguing with the mirror and shift the problem back onto us.

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

#654

Post by VirusNewbie »

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)

The funny thing is, as a white (mexican american) engineer at Google, it's not exactly rare when I'm the only white person in some larger meetings.

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

#655

Post by hotdogscout »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #622
tekla wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can't be racist against white people"

[flagged]

I don't know what kind of damage you developed to wish harm on others based on their race or gender but you are a horrible person.

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

#657

Post by feoren »

People are not understanding what Gemini is for. This is partly Google's fault, of course. But clearly historical accuracy is not the point of generative AI (or at least this particular model). If you want an accurate picture of the founding fathers, why would you not go to Wikipedia? You're asking a generative model -- an artist with a particular style -- to generate completely new images for you in a fictional universe; of course they're not representative of reality. That's clearly not its objective. It'd be like asking Picasso to draw a picture of a 1943 German soldier and then getting all frenzied because their nose is in the wrong place! If you don't like the style of the artist, don't ask them to draw you a picture!

I'm also confused: what's the problem with the "picture of an American woman" prompt? I get why the 1820s German Couples and the 1943 German soldiers are ludicrous, but are people really angry that pictures of American women include medium and dark skin tones? If you get angry that out of four pictures of American women, only two are white, I have to question whether you're really just wanting Google to regurgitate your own racism back to you.

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

#658

Post by Perceval »

inference-lord wrote: post #364
sva_ wrote: post #150

German couple in 1820 https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1avmpfo/ah_the_cla... 1943 German soldier https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1awtzf0/average_ge... Pretty funny, but what do you expect.

The African Nazi was amusing.

Maybe it was drawing from the couple thousand North African troops that fought for the Wehrmacht: https://allthatsinteresting.com/free-arabian-legion

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

#660

Post by tczMUFlmoNk »

rosmax_1337 wrote: post #507
datadrivenangel wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google dislikes getting bad PR. Modern western tech society will criticize (mostly correctly) a lack of diversity in basically any aspect of a company or technology. This often is expressed in shorthand as there being too many white cis men. Don't forget google's fancy doors didn't work as well for black people at once point. Lots of bad PR.

Why is a "lack of diversity" a problem? Do different races have different attributes which complement each other on a team?

Yep, people from different backgrounds bring different experiences and perspectives, which complement each other and make products more useful for more people. Race and gender are two characteristics that lead to pretty different lived experiences, so having team members who can represent those experiences matters.
Post reply on HN