Comment by starbugs

1 year ago

That may also be a way to generate attention/visibility for Gemini considering that they are not seen as the leader in AI anymore?

Attention is all you need.

Not all publicity is good.

How many people will never again trust Google's AI because they know Google is eager to bias the results? Competitors are already pointing out that their models don't make those mistakes, so you should use them instead. Then there's the news about the original Gemini demo being faked too.

This seems more likely to kill the product than help it.

  • > How many people will never again trust Google's AI because they know Google is eager to bias the results?

    Seems like hyperbole.

    Probably literally no one is offended to the point that they will never trust google again by this.

    People seem determined to believe that google will fail and want google to fail; and they may; but this won’t cause it.

    It’ll just be a wave in the ocean.

    People have short memories.

    In 6 months no one will even care; there will some other new drama to complain about.

    • It’s not untrustworthy because it’s offensive, it’s offensive because it’s untrustworthy. If people think that Google is trying to rewrite history or hide “misinformation” or enforce censorship to appease actual or perceived powers, they’re going to go elsewhere.

    • I haven't trusted google since finding out they've received seed money from InQtel. Puts all their crippling algorithm changes into perspective.

  • > This seems more likely to kill the product than help it.

    How many people will have visited Gemini the first time today just to try out the "biased image generator"?

    There's a good chance some may stick.

    The issue will be forgotten in a few days and then the next current thing comes.

Bad publicity might be good for upstarts with no brand to protect. But Google is no upstart and has a huge brand to protect.

The idea that “attention is all you need” here is a handwavy explanation that doesn’t hold up against basic scrutiny. Why would Google do something this embarrassing? What could they possibly stand to gain? Google has plenty of attention as it is. They have far more to lose. Not everything has to be a conspiracy.

  • Probably just hamfisted calculation. Backlash/embarrassment due to forced diversity and excluding white people from generated imagery < backlash from lack of diversity and (non-white) cultural insensitivity.

  • My hot take is that the people designing this particular system didn't see a problem with deconstructing history.