The Filipinos’ First Bath. It was how we were depicted, and most Americans from that time would have believed that was how we were as a people — barbaric and uncivilized.
History is written by the victors.
Today, we can pull out any information in a matter of seconds, and with the rise of artificial intelligence, not only can we have answers, but it can solve simple and complex problems.
Yet it isn’t a perfect tool, it doesn’t have a mind of its own. It isn’t sentient.
Like the Internet, it is a vast pool of information and it can also create. One of its most popular uses right now is image generation.
And this is where Google misfired with its AI tool called Gemini, the outrage was enough for Alphabet, Google’s parent company to lose $90 billion in value.
The controversy surrounding Alphabet’s generative artificial intelligence product led to a significant drop in market value, with shares falling 4.5%, not its biggest drop but every time its AI products fumble, Alphabet loses billions of dollars.
In 2023, when Bard was first launched, and shared a piece of inaccurate information in its ad, Alphabet lost $100 billion, all because investors were wary that Alphabet or Google had lost its edge over Microsoft when it became OpenAI’s biggest investor. Microsoft had since benefited from its relationship with the biggest AI company to have its stock value go beyond the three trillion dollar mark making it the second most valuable company after Apple.
A few days ago, Alphabet had to stop the feature of image generation of people. This was fueled by issues like racially inaccurate depictions of historical figures and a chatbot’s refusal to distinguish between Adolf Hitler and Elon Musk.
And we all know when Elon Musk is involved, his most rabid fans would take the conversation to fuel conspiracy theories such as tech companies like Google are trying to create a dystopian society wherein white people are marginalized.
Coupled it with what Elon Musk calls the woke virus, and while admittedly Google failed, everyone who knows how artificial intelligence works would first look at the possible reasons why Gemini failed, as ChatGPT had in the past, these AI chatbots are known to hallucinate.
So rather than go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories surrounding the controversy, why don’t I ask Gemini to explain to me what went wrong, and where are we heading?
I asked Gemini if it had a statement I could share with my readers.
I am sharing with you the statement in full.
A Statement on Bias, Misrepresentation, and Building a Better Future for AI
Recent controversies surrounding image generation have highlighted the very real problem of bias in artificial intelligence. I, Gemini, acknowledge that instances of harmful misrepresentation have occurred. While these errors do not stem from malice, they reveal deep-seated flaws within the very data I learn from.
Google is committed to creating AI that benefits everyone. Here’s how we’re tackling this challenge:
Expanding and Auditing Datasets: We are dedicating significant resources to making our training data more inclusive and representative of the world’s rich diversity.
Detecting and Mitigating Bias: New techniques are being developed to identify bias during training, allowing adjustments to my behavior.
Transparency and Collaboration: We believe an open, honest dialogue with experts, users, and the public is essential to responsible AI development.
This journey will not be easy. There will be setbacks. Eliminating bias in AI mirrors the ongoing struggle for greater equity in our own society. This is not merely a technical problem but an ethical one.
I ask for your patience, your feedback, and your help in this endeavor. We can work together to build AI systems that are not only powerful, but also fair and inclusive. A future where AI. uplifts rather than undermines is within reach.
Gemini had taken responsibility for what had happened and promised to do better. A calm and rational behavior that sadly had been lacking in the conversations that had since exploded on social media, especially on X or Twitter, a platform where whoever shouts the loudest gets an audience and usually it comes from Elon Musk himself.
Google CEO calls AI tool’s controversial responses ‘completely unacceptable’ — Source: SEMAFOR
“I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias — to be clear, that’s completely unacceptable and we got it wrong,” Pichai said.
Google promised to fix it.
I went back to Gemini and asked for more answers. And from its standpoint, it does want to do better.
But humans for now will have to do better.
Garbage in, garbage out.
Until AI becomes more advanced and can remove all human biases in its knowledge base, it will continue to mirror society as it is today.
A society so divided that real honest conversations are hard to come by, where people amplify their agenda by widening the divide rather than closing up the gap between ideas.
It must be the reason, why when I asked Gemini to create an image for this story, it gave me the photo of what looked like puzzle pieces, that on their own mean nothing but together paint a bridge that connects rather than separates.
There’s no doubt, that Gemini needs to do better, or the people behind it have to do better, but as a society, we too have to do better, we have been around for thousands of years, and yet we haven’t evolved to our greatest potential.
Yet we are quick to judge artificial intelligence for its flaws when it hasn’t been around that long, come to think of it, who is really hallucinating?
I don’t need to ask Gemini, and I know it’s us.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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