Google disabled the image-generation feature of its chatbot Gemini on Thursday in response to criticism from certain users who called the service “woke.”
Social media users have claimed that the AI routinely produced photographs of people of colour in false historical settings, according to Business Insider.
That night, Musk wrote multiple posts on X slamming Google.
“I’m glad that Google overplayed their hand with their AI image generation, as it made their insane racist, anti-civilizational programming clear to all,” Musk wrote in one of the posts.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Google said it was “aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image-generation depictions.” The company said Gemini is “missing the mark” and that the company is “working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately.”
Google later announced on Thursday that it “will re-release an improved version soon.”
Notably, Musk has a stake in the AI race. Grok, the conversational chatbot developed by X, is trained on X postings. Musk has promised to make Grok politically agnostic.
The billionaire Tesla investor also pursued Jack Krawczyk, Gemini’s product lead.
Krawczyk stated on Wednesday that the goal of Gemini’s image-generation features was to “reflect our global user base.”
“This nut is a big part of why Google’s AI is so racist & sexist,” Musk wrote on X on Thursday.
Musk has previously attacked businesses for adopting what he sees as inadequate corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies. Additionally, Musk has disparaged other AI companies in favour of X’s Grok AI, such as Sam Altman’s OpenAI.
