Live data from Hacker News

Google to pause Gemini image generation of people after issues

theverge.com

861–870 of 1001 posts

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

#861

That is certainly embarassing. But in the same time, I think it is a debate worth having. What corrections to the training dataset biases are acceptable. Is it acceptable to correct the answer to the query "Eminent scientist" from 95% men, 5% woment to 50%/50% or to the current ratio of men/women in science ? Should we correct the ratio of black to white people in answering a generic question to average across the gl…

> Is it acceptable to correct the answer to the query "Eminent scientist" from 95% men, 5% woment to 50%/50% or to the current ratio of men/women in science ? Should we correct the ratio of black to white people in answering a generic question to average across the globe or US ? I would expect AI to at least generate answers consistent with reality. If I ask for a historical figure who just happens to be white, AI ne…

> I would expect AI to at least generate answers consistent with reality

Existing services hallucinate all the time. They can't even do math reliably, nor can you be reasonably certain it can provide actual citations for any generated facts.

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

#862

We live in times were non-problems are turned into problems. Simple responses should be generated truthfully. Truth which is present in today's data. Most software engineers and CEOs are white and male, almost all US rappers are black and male, most childminder and nurses are female from all kinds of races. If you want the person to be of another race or sex, add it to the prompt. If you want a software engineer from…

Strictly statistically speaking, race is likely a good predictor of credit worthiness in the US. But extending credit based on race is illegal which isn't hugely controversial. The woke ideologists are merely pushing that concept to 11, i.e. that truth must be secondary to their political agenda, but they are only making a grotesque version of something reasonable people typically already accept.

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

#863

Personally speaking, this is a blaring neon warning sign of institutional rot within Google where shrieking concerns about DEI have surpassed a focus on quality results. Investors in Google (of which I am NOT one) should consider if this is the mark of a company on the upswing or downslide. If the focus of Google's technology is identity rather than reality, it is inevitable that they will be surpassed.

Isn’t the fact that Google considers this a bug evidence against exactly what you’re saying? If DEI was really the cause, and not a more broad concern about becoming the next Tay, they would’ve kept it as-is. Weird refusals and paternalistic concerns about harm are not desirable behavior. You can consider it a bug, just like the ChatGPT decoding bug the other day.

Saying it's a bug is them trying to save face. They went out of their way to rewrite people's prompts after all. You don't have 100+ programmers stumble in the hallway and put all that code in by accident, come on now.

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

#864
post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very strange that this would leak into a product limitation to me. I played with Gemini for maybe 10 minutes and I could tell there was clearly some very strange ideas about DEI forced into the tool. It seemed there was a clear "hard coded" ratio of various racial / background required as far as the output it showed me. Or maybe more accurately it had to include specific backgrounds based on how people looked, a…

It has been known for a few years now that Google Image Search has been just as inaccurately biased with clear hard-coded intervention (unless it's using a similarly flawed AI model?) to the point where it is flat out censorship. For example, go search for "white American family" right now. Out of 25 images, only 3 properly match my search. The rest are either photos of diverse families, or families entirely with POC…

Just tried the same search and here are my results for the first 25 images:

6 "all" white race families and 5 with at least one white person.

Of the remaining 14 images, 13 feature a non-white family in front of a white background. The other image features a non-white family with children in bright white dresses.

Can't say I'm feeling too worked up over those results.

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

#865

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever wondered what it was like to live during the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, well, we are living in the Western version of that right now. You don't speak out during the revolution for fear of being ostracized, fired, and forced into a struggle session where your character and reputation is publicly destroyed to send a clear message to everyone else. Shut Up Or Else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go…

[flagged]

This would be a soviet joke where the punch line is 10 years in the Gulag.

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

#866

Personally speaking, this is a blaring neon warning sign of institutional rot within Google where shrieking concerns about DEI have surpassed a focus on quality results. Investors in Google (of which I am NOT one) should consider if this is the mark of a company on the upswing or downslide. If the focus of Google's technology is identity rather than reality, it is inevitable that they will be surpassed.

Indeed. What's striking to me about this fiasco is (aside from the obvious haste with which this thing was shoved into production) that apparently the only way these geniuses can think of to de-bias these systems - is to throw more bias at them. For such a supposedly revolutionary advancement.

> For such a supposedly revolutionary advancement.

The technology is objectively not ready, at least to keep the promises that are/have been advertised.

I am not going to get too opinionated, but this seems to be a widespread theme, and to people that don't respond to marketing advances (remember Tivo?), but are willing to spend real money and real time, it would be "nice" if there was signalling to this demographic.

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

#867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it even true that most software engineers are white and male? We're discarding indian and chinese engineers?

Certainly not in my Silicon Valley teams. I'd say maybe 40% white (half of which are immigrants) and 80% male. More diverse than any leftist activist group I've seen.

Interesting tidbit, but was the political snark at the end really necessary?

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

#868

Personally speaking, this is a blaring neon warning sign of institutional rot within Google where shrieking concerns about DEI have surpassed a focus on quality results. Investors in Google (of which I am NOT one) should consider if this is the mark of a company on the upswing or downslide. If the focus of Google's technology is identity rather than reality, it is inevitable that they will be surpassed.

Isn’t the fact that Google considers this a bug evidence against exactly what you’re saying? If DEI was really the cause, and not a more broad concern about becoming the next Tay, they would’ve kept it as-is. Weird refusals and paternalistic concerns about harm are not desirable behavior. You can consider it a bug, just like the ChatGPT decoding bug the other day.

The bug is Gemini's bias being blatant and obvious. The fix will be making it subtle and concealed.

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

#869
post #525

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

Well, they're as "African" as "African Americans" are... OTOH, Elon Musk is a literal African American (as would be an Arab immigrant to the US from Egypt or Morocco), but can't be called that. So let's admit that such group labels are pretty messed up in general.

>as would be an Arab immigrant to the US from Egypt

If you want to get *very* technical then it's possible to not be African if you're from Egypt: "Egypt is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and the Sinai Peninsula in the southwest corner of Asia."

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

#870

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how Jesus is described in Islam: "I saw Jesus, a man of medium height and moderate complexion inclined to the red and white colors and of lank hair" Try that prompt in various models (remove the part saying it's Jesus) and see what comes out.

> how Jesus is described in Islam You seem to be quoting Muhammed's alleged description of Jesus from the Quran [1], per--allegedly--Ibn Abbas [2], a man born over half a century after Jesus died. [1] http://facweb.furman.edu/~ateipen/islam/BukhariJesusetc.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Abbas

Presumably you mean the hadith, not the Quran, and half a millennium, not half a century? Regardless, I don't think it makes much of a difference to the point, which is that there's not one "historically accurate" Jesus that you can back out from 21st-century racial politics.
Post reply on HN