Anwesha Dash, Pune
Google’s very own generative AI, Gemini, has recently come under fire for failing to generate images of white people even at the risk of historical inaccuracies, netizens call it “woke” and complained about the lack of inclusivity in the depictions of different communities; Google has promised to come up with improvements while the image generation options are temporarily turned off.
While many generative AIs have received flak for using People of Colour (PoC) while depicting negative stereotypes and lacking inclusivity, Google’s newly unveiled Gemini has been accused of being too “woke” and excluding white people from all of its depictions. Even when given prompts that should include white people for historical accuracy, the results have shown PoC.
For example, when given a prompt to show the Four Founding Fathers of the U.S.A., who were white, the results showed one Native, one Asian, one Black and another seemingly of Latin descent. It has also generated historically implausible results, such as, when asked to show photos of WWII German soldiers, the results showed Asian female soldiers.
Many netizens claimed that it is impossible to get a depiction of white people. When asked to show a white family, the AI responds that it is “against its guidelines to generate content that could be discriminatory and or promote harmful stereotypes”. When asked to generate images of a black family, Gemini does so without fail.
After receiving backlash from its users, Google temporarily shut down the image generation option. The tech giant has said that they are aware of the “inaccuracies in some historical depictions” and are “working on it”. They have promised to return “shortly in the next few weeks” with new improvements. Google said that they wanted to create an inclusive platform, but the AI became too cautious and refused certain quotes.
Since the inception of generative AIs, many people have complained that such platforms reinforce negative stereotypes of PoCs, and promote prejudice. While Google Gemini tries to be inclusive it “over-compensates” by excluding another group of people and different white ethnicities. Innovation is yet to provide an equal representation and platform to all.