Google suspends Gemini chatbot’s ability to generate pictures of people

Google said Thursday it’s temporarily stopping its Gemini artificial intelligence chatbot from generating images of people a day after apologizing for โ€œinaccuraciesโ€ in historical depictions that it was creating.

Gemini users this week posted screenshots on social media of historically white-dominated scenes with racially diverse characters that they say it generated, leading critics to raise questions about whether the company is over-correcting for the risk of racial bias in its AI model.

โ€œWeโ€™re already working to address recent issues with Geminiโ€™s image generation feature,โ€ Google said in a post on the social media platform X. โ€œWhile we do this, weโ€™re going to pause the image generation of people and will re-release an improved version soon.โ€

Previous studies have shown AI image-generators can amplify racial and gender stereotypes found in their training data, and without filters are more likely to generate lighter-skinned men when asked to generate a person in various contexts.

Google said on Wednesday that it’s โ€œaware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictionsโ€ and that it’s “working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately.”

Gemini can generate a โ€œwide range of people,โ€ which the company said is โ€œgenerally a good thing” because people around the world use the system but it is โ€œmissing the mark.โ€

When the AP asked Gemini to generate pictures of people, it responded by saying it’s โ€œworking to improveโ€ the ability to do so. โ€œWe expect this feature to return soon and will notify you in release updates when it does,โ€ the chatbot said.

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