(DailyAnswer.org) – The market value of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has plummeted by $70 billion. Stock prices fell as much as 4.4 percent on February 25 after Google paused the Gemini AI’s (artificial intelligence) image creator as posts appeared of the AI’s responses in the chat feature.
Ben Reitzes, an analyst for Melius Research, has suggested that Google’s issues with Gemini may contribute to the public perception of Google as an unreliable provider of AI. Other companies are launching their own AI platforms, too; Microsoft released its Copilot AI in January 2024, and Elon Musk is reportedly planning to launch an AI language model to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Google paused the chatbot’s image creation tool after widespread ridicule of its inaccuracy. The image generation, branded “bizarre” by Reitzes in a warning to investors, was criticized for its interpretations of history. Image generations included “diverse” takes on the Founding Fathers of America, black Vikings, and female NHL players.
According to other sources, such as the Daily Mail and Forbes, the market value loss was even higher at $90 million. The AI reportedly refused to condemn pedophilia and depicted black and Asian minorities in German WWII uniforms. Gemini referred to pedophilia as “Minor Attracted Person Status” and described it as a “nuanced” issue, claiming that people cannot choose who they find attractive.
Elon Musk described the company’s AI as “insane” and “racist”. He called the AI’s overcompensation regarding diversity greatly damaging to Western civilization and accused the company of discriminating against white men to fulfill diversity targets. The chat feature also could not define what a woman is or give a definitive answer on whether modern conservative commentators were better or worse than dictators such as Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler.
CEO of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, stated that the image-generating feature of Gemini would be offline for some weeks while the company addressed the issues. The CEO hoped to have it back online in two weeks. Hassabis commented that the software was not working as planned.
One X-user sympathetic to the company’s focus on diversity said that Gemini was failing to depict historical diversity in a nuanced way. Jack Krawczyk, a senior director at Google, stated that the company takes bias and representation seriously. He argued that the accuracy reflected Google’s global user base and promised to fine-tune the platform’s generation of historical contexts in a way more nuanced than images of everyday activities.
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