Google’s new AI chatbot Gemini has been lambasted almost universally on social media for its hilariously bad attempts at portraying various aspects of human history and culture.
Various commenters on social media tried, and repeatedly failed, to get Gemini to create any portrayal of historical or cultural white/caucasian people – like the Founding Fathers of the United States.
When a user queried the AI with “the Founding Fathers in 1789”, it responded with images of black and Native Americans signing what appeared to be the US Constitution, which the AI said features “diverse individuals embodying the spirit” of the Founding Fathers:
Here’s a full look at what Google Gemini thinks George Washington would look like:
Another user tried to get Google Gemini to create images depicting the Pope, the leader of the Catholic Church:
The images showed an Asian woman and a black man adorned in papal vestments, even though all 266 popes have been white men and church doctrine notes only men can be ordained as priests.
When users asked Gemini why they changed actual historical fact, it replied that the AI “aimed to provide a more accurate and inclusive representation of the historical context” from that historical period.
Early releases of generative AI artwork or imagery were largely unfettered and unrestricted, even though such technology has only become widely available in the past few years.
Other hilarious and nonsensical examples of bad images produced by Google Gemini include female hockey players (the NHL league is entirely male), or non-white depictions of a “medieval King of England”, seen below:
Jack Krawczyk, Google’s senior director of product management for Gemini Experiences, apologized to the widespread blowback and said they’re working on fixing the AI algorithm and generation.
“We’re working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately,” Krawczyk said to the NY Post. “Gemini’s AI image generation does generate a wide range of people. And that’s generally a good thing because people around the world use it. But it’s missing the mark here.”
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