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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

#911

Post by throwuwu »

prepend wrote: post #730
duxup wrote: 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 does seem really strange that the tool refuses specific backgrounds. So if I am trying to make a city scene in Singapore and want all Asians in the background, the tool refuses? On what grounds? This seems pretty non-functional and while I applaud, I guess, the idea that somehow this is more fair it seems like the legitimate uses for needing specific demographic backgrounds in an image outweigh racists trying to m…

Can anyone explain in simple terms what the actual harm would be of allowing everyone to generate images with whatever racial composition they desired? If you can specify the skin colour one way you can do it the other ways as well and instead of everyone being upset at having this forced down our throats we’d probably all be liking pictures of interesting concepts like what if Native Americans were the first to land on the moon or what if America was colonized by African nations and all the founding fathers were black. No one opposes these concepts, people just hate having it arbitrarily forced on them.

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

#912

Post by faeriechangling »

gedy wrote: post #753
duxup wrote: 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…

> How is it that this was somehow approved? If the tweets can be believed, Gemini's product lead (Jack Krawzczyk) is very, shall we say, "passionate" about this type of social justice belief. So would not be a surprise if he's in charge of this.

What I saw was pretty boilerplate mild self-hating white racist stuff, it didn't seem extreme and this was mined out of years of twitter history. I'm somewhat unconvinced that it is THIS GUY to blame.

I do wonder when people will finally recognise that people who go on rants about the wrongs of racial group on twitter are racists though.

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

#913

Post by randomdata »

duxup wrote: post #694
logicalmonster wrote: post #596

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.

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…

> Then I asked Gemini to stop doing that / tried specifying racial backgrounds... Gemini refused.

When I played with it, I was getting some really strange results. Almost like it generated an image full of Caucasian people and then tried to adjust the contrast of some of the characters to give them darker skin. The while people looked quite photorealistic, but the black people looked like it was someone's first day with Photoshop.

To which I told it "Don't worry about diversity" and it complied. The new images it produced looked much more natural.

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

#914

Post by 8note »

pocket_cheese wrote: post #765
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the focus of Google's technology is identity rather than reality, it is inevitable that they will be surpassed. They're trailing 5 or so years behind Disney who also placed DEI over producing quality entertainment and their endless stream of flops reflects that. South Park even mocked them about that ("put a black chick in it and make her lame and gay"). Can't wait for Gemini and Google to flop as well since nob…

Fortune 500s are laughably insincere and hamfisted in how they do DEI. But these types of comments feel like schadenfreude towards the "woke moralist mind-virus" But lets be real here ... DEI is a good thing when done well. How are you going to talk to the customer when they are speaking a different cultural language. Even form a purely capitalist perspective, having a diverse workforce means you can target more mark…

"done well" is really hard to define, and its also very hard to attribute back to one thing when you do have success.

Did you get the sale with the customer because you invested in DEI? Or because you made something they want by accident?

Customers can also talk in different languages, and as a result of historic oppression, minorities tend to be able to code shift. Assuming your potential customers are unable to become customers because of their limitations might not be right

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

#915

Post by danlugo92 »

logicalmonster wrote: post #596

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.

> I am NOT one

Could you be one though? (Thought exercise for any readers)

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

#916

Post by MagicMoonlight »

aliasxneo wrote: post #544

Quite the cultural flame war in this thread. For me, the whole incident points to the critical importance of open models. A bit of speculation, but if AI is eventually intended to play a role in education, this sort of control would be a dream for historical revisionists. The classic battle of the thought police is now being extended to AI.

It’s absolutely genius. The model will insist that Columbus was black no matter what. And tomorrow he will be Chinese and there’s no contradiction there. Are you feeling okay? Would you like me to make a referral to a partner organisation for you? We care here at google.

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

#917

Post by wakawaka28 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #909
sotasota wrote: post #759

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…

You do know that the same time China was having its Cultural Revolution, America and the west were having one as well? With all those baby boomer kids coming of age, 1969 wasn't a calm year anywhere in the world. In China, it meant communism and down with the old culture/elites. In the USA, it meant free love, drugs, and protesting against the Vietnam war. But this, I don't see any comparison to Google suppressing wh…

It's evidence of a systematic suppression of white people, with roots in racism and cultural Marxism. Of course you're right that it hasn't escalated out of control yet. Except that whole BLM thing where people burnt down businesses and terrorized cities for months. That's just a taste of what's coming if we don't promote actual tolerance instead of Division Exclusion and Indoctrination.

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

#918

Post by wakawaka28 »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #902
sotasota wrote: post #759

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…

Nah, America is past "peak woke". If it gets Trump 2.0 there might be a hyper-woke backlash though (or double backlash?). But if there's another Biden term, things will be chill, culturally. Also, Twitter is dead, and that's where the spirals got out of hand.

Biden is letting a whole ass army of military-age young men into the country and burning all our money in expensive wars that might turn nuclear. He has to be voted out. Besides that, he's so obviously incompetent and senile, it would be a sick joke to keep him in. I figure either way, we're getting trouble. At least if we get someone else, we might have a chance to get our affairs in order, even if there are a few people freaking out about "far right" candidates (aka anyone the uniparty hates).

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

#919

Post by wakawaka28 »

TheKarateKid wrote: post #827
duxup wrote: 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…

In addition to my comment about Google Image Search, regular Web Search results are equally biased and censored. There was once a race-related topic trending on X/Twitter that I wanted to read more about to figure out why it was trending. It was a trend started and continuing to be discussed by Black Twitter, so it's not like some Neo-Nazis managed to start trending something terrible. Upon searching Google with the…

They do that about many topics. It's not consistently bad, but more often than not I have to search with multiple other search engines for hot topics. Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo are all about equally bad. I haven't done much with Yahoo, but I think they get stuff from Google these days.

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

#920

Post by wakawaka28 »

logicchains wrote: post #792
duxup wrote: 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…

>How is it someone who is so out of touch with the end user in position to make these decisions? Maybe it's the same team behind Tensorflow? Google tends to like taking the "we know better than users" approach to the design of their software libraries, maybe that's finally leaked into their AI product design.

Their social agenda leaks into their search and advertising products constantly. I first noticed a major bias like 8 years ago. It was probably biased even before that in ways I was oblivious to.
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