Google said Thursday it is temporarily stopping its Gemini artificial intelligence chatbot from generating images of people a day after apologizing for “inaccuracies” 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.
“We’re already working to address recent issues with Gemini’s image generation feature,” Google said in a post on the social media platform X. “While we do this, we’re going to pause the image generation of people and will re-release an improved version soon.”
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 show lighter-skinned men when asked to generate a person in various contexts.
Google said on Wednesday that it's “aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions” and that it's "working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately."
Gemini can generate a “wide range of people,” which the company said is “generally a good thing" because people around the world use the system but it is “missing the mark.”
University of Washington researcher Sourojit Ghosh, who has studied bias in AI image-generators, said he's in favor of Google pausing the generation of people's faces but is a “little conflicted about how we got to this outcome.” Contrary to claims of so-called “white erasure” and the premise that Gemini refuses to generate faces of white people — ideas circulating on social media this week — Ghosh's research has largely found the opposite.“
The rapidness of this response in the face of a lot of other literature and a lot of other research that has shown traditionally marginalized people being erased by models like this — I find a little difficult to square,” he said.
When the AP asked Gemini to generate pictures of people, or even just a big crowd, it responded by saying it's “working to improve” the ability to do so. “We expect this feature to return soon and will notify you in release updates when it does,” the chatbot said.
Ghosh said it's likely that Google can find a way to filter responses to reflect the historical context of a user's prompt, but solving the broader harms posed by image-generators built on generations of photos and artwork found on the internet requires more than a technical patch.“
You’re not going to overnight come up with a text-to-image generator that does not cause representational harm,” he said. “They are a reflection of the society in which we live.”
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
Nvidia reported a 56% increase in second-quarter revenue and a 59% rise in net income compared to a year ago.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos claims audiences don't want to watch Netflix movies in theaters, but that seems not to be the case recently.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
Low-value imports are losing their duty-free status in the U.S. this week as part of President Donald Trump's agenda for making the nation less dependent on foreign goods. A widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 or less is set to end starting on Friday. Trump already ended the “de minimis” rule for inexpensive items sent from China and Hong Kong, but having to pay import taxes on small parcels from everywhere else likely will be a big change for some small businesses and online shoppers. Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs will be subject to the origin country’s tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.
Southwest Airlines will soon require plus-size travelers to pay for an extra seat in advance if they can't fit within the armrests of one seat. This change is part of several updates the airline is making. The new rule starts on Jan. 27, the same day Southwest begins assigning seats. Currently, plus-size passengers can pay for an extra seat in advance and later get a refund, or request a free extra seat at the airport. Under the new policy, refunds are still possible but not guaranteed. Southwest said in a statement it is updating policies to prepare for assigned seating next year.
