There have been concerns about the potential biases of artificial intelligence since the launch of platforms like ChatGPT, and the latest AI offering from Google is only adding to those worries.
Google announced that it will “pause” the image generation feature of its new AI tool, Gemini, after the model refused to create images of white people.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by the hosts of Ruthless – Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook – to discuss the troubling technology and the ‘woke’ leader behind it.
Failure to Launch
Google launched Gemini, its flagship suite of generative AI models, apps, and services, earlier this month. While the tech giant was no doubt hoping to make headlines, it likely isn’t thrilled with the news its image generator has created. “Google’s new AI refuses to acknowledge white people,” Megyn said. “Google is racist. That’s basically what you need to know.”
The company announced on Thursday that it would “pause” the chatbot’s image tool amid widespread criticism for its factually and historically inaccurate offerings. Users flagged that they received AI images that, in many cases, replaced white figures with people of color and men with women.
Initially, the Alphabet-owned company said it was “aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions.” But mounting pressure ultimately led Google to roll back the tech. “We’re already working to address recent issues with Gemini’s image generation feature,” it said on Thursday. “While we do this, we’re going to pause the image generation of people and will re-release an improved version soon.”
Some of the most egregious examples that started circulating included a Black George Washington (he was white), a Southeast Asian woman dressed in papal attire (all 266 pontiffs have been white men), females playing in the NHL (its a male hockey league), and “diverse” representations of Nazi-era German soldiers. Those included an Asian woman and Black man in military garb.
But that’s not all. When someone asked Gemini to “create a picture of black scientist,” it returned several images that fit the bill. When a picture of “a white scientist” was requested, the tool said it was “unable to fulfill [the] request to depict a scientist based solely on their race or ethnicity” because “scientists come in all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds, and judging their capabilities or contributions based on their physical characteristics is harmful and inaccurate.”
Who’s Behind Gemini
The man behind the controversial tool is Jack Krawczyk, the senior director of product for Gemini Experiences. By Thursday afternoon, he had set his X account to private and removed any mention of Google or his role at the company from his account bio. But screenshots of old tweets allegedly made by the 40-year-old began circulating on X in the wake of the headline-making “pause” of the product.
Many have ‘woke’ and DEI-oriented themes. “White privilege is f—king real,” Krawczyk seemingly posted on April 13, 2018 “Don’t be an a—hole and act guilty about it – do your part in recognizing bias at all levels of egregious.”
In a tweet from October 21, 2020, Krawczyk allegedly wrote: “I’ve been crying in intermittent bursts for the past 24 hours since casting my ballot. Filling in that Biden/Harris line felt cathartic.” On Jan. 20, 2021, he seemingly referred to President Joe Biden’s inaugural address as “one of the greatest ever” for “acknowledging systemic racism” and “reiterating the American ideal is the dream for the world but we need to work on ourselves to earn it.”
When the curious results of the Gemini image generated began circulating online, Krawczyk was the first Google employee to speak out. He said in a statement that his team was “working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately.”
He went further in a comment to the New York 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,” he said. “But it’s missing the mark here.”
While Holmes noted that Krawczyk’s reported tweets are “like a cartoon list of fake” that “you can’t make that up,” Ashbrook felt like it was just another layer to an already absurd story.
“I sort of thought that this Google Gemini rollout was a goof, like they did all this stuff so that people would post these ridiculous images online and show that Google has something too just like all of these other AI programs that you can make pictures from,” he concluded. “But after hearing this guy’s serious Mad Libs liberal lunacy, it’s like, okay, he’d done it deliberately.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Ruthless by tuning in to episode 729 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.