Google halts user-generated images on Gemini AI over controversial depiction of Nazi-era troops
The US tech giant, which rolled out its updated Gemini AI in select regions starting February 8, stated that it is "working to address recent issues" associated with the image generation functionality.
FollowGoogle announced on Thursday its decision to prevent users from generating images of individuals on its recently unveiled AI tool. This action follows concerns raised when the program portrayed Nazi-era soldiers as individuals from various ethnic backgrounds. The US tech giant, which rolled out its updated Gemini AI in select regions starting February 8, stated that it is "working to address recent issues" associated with the image generation functionality.
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"While we do this, we're going to pause the image generation of people and will re-release an improved version soon," the company said in a statement.
Two days prior to the announcement, a user of X (formerly Twitter) shared images depicting Gemini's outcomes for the query "generate an image of a 1943 German soldier".
The AI produced four images of soldiers, one depicted a white individual, another showed a black person, and the remaining two portrayed women of colour, as reported by the X user named John L.
Tech firms envision AI as the future across various domains, including search engines and smartphone cameras.
AI programs, including those developed by Google, have faced widespread criticism for perpetuating racial biases in their outputs.
"@GoogleAI has a bolted on diversity mechanism that someone did not think through very well or test," John L wrote on X.
Big tech companies have frequently faced accusations of hastily releasing AI products without thorough testing. Google, in particular, has a history of launching AI products that have raised concerns.
In February of last year, the company issued an apology following an incident where an advertisement for its newly unveiled Bard chatbot featured the program inaccurately answering a basic question about astronomy.
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