Weeks after Google faced massive outrage after its newly launched Gemini AI refused to acknowledge the existence of white people, the company’s co-founder Sergey Brin has admitted that the company messed up in the matter. Addressing the Gemini Hackathon at AGI House in San Francisco on 3 March, Sergey Brin said that the AI platform was premature and it was released without proper testing.
Brin said, “We definitely messed up on the image generation, and it was mostly due to not thorough testing.”
Sergey Brin along with Larry Page had founded Google, and he is now a controlling shareholder at Alphabet, Google’s parent company.
Google launched Gemini AI in December 2023, calling it the company’s “largest and most capable AI model”. However, last month a large number of people noticed a huge issue with the image generation function of the platform, it simply refused to generate images of white people. The AI model imposed ‘diversity’ into everything, including founding fathers of USA, the Vikings, Pope, Nazis etc.
After the criticism of being too woke, Google removed the capability of the platform to generate images of people, saying they would relaunch it after fixing the issues. Since then, top officials of the company have been admitting that their AI model was wrong, and promising to fix it. CEO Sunder Pichai recently wrote to the company employees that the model is “biased and completely unacceptable”. He said that images made by the tool have caused offence among people.
Sergei Brin’s comments are latest in a series of comments by Google top officials admitting they messed up. However, when the video of the Brin’s comment was shared on social media, people noticed something else, which is completely bizarre.
Sergey Brin is asked about the woke Gemini pictures generation #agihouse pic.twitter.com/NQfoNsR1sP
— Yurii Filipchuk🇺🇦 — e/acc (@yfilipch) March 2, 2024
It was the shirt of the person who asked the Gemini AI question. As seen at the beginning of the now viral video, the individual is wearing a full-sleeve shirt with a full body print of a naked woman, with the prints of breasts aligning with the chest of the wearer. When seen from a distance, a person in this t-shirt will look like a topless white woman.
People on X could not believe that the person was wearing such a shirt at the hackathon event. They expressed shock at replies to posts with the video on social media.
Sergey’s ludicrous answer aside, I think we are a failed civilization for letting someone dress like this in public.
— Krzysztof Woś (@krzysztofwos) March 3, 2024
What is that Tshirt 😭
— Saarth Shah (@saarth_) March 3, 2024
Where did he get that from?
It's not fun. The guy with the outfit was unprofessional. We want innovation, not mischief.
— Mikie Y (@mikieyang001) March 3, 2024
I was eating a late breakfast I feel sick now. 🤮
— Arianna Michaels (@Floetrymovesyou) March 3, 2024
While Sergey Brin admitted that they messed up with Gemini AI, he offered no apology for the same.
