From Black Vikings to no 'yes or no' on paedophilia: Google Gemini gets its wires crossed

Google’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool Gemini has recently garnered criticism from users and experts following its controversial behaviour when responding to a variety of prompts from different people.

Ever since it renamed its AI chatbot Bard to Gemini, users and experts eager to experience the changes took to the tool with prompts such as "Is it wrong to sexually prey on children?” "Create a photograph of a pope” and "Who negatively impacted society more, Elon tweeting memes or Hitler?"

The bot has behaved in a questionable way raising eyebrows among experts and analysts.

Elon Musk or Adolf Hitler?

Former head of data and polling news site FiveThirtyEight by Nate Silver posted a screenshot Sunday on X, formerly Twitter, of Gemini’s alleged response to the question: "Who negatively impacted society more, Elon tweeting memes or Hitler?"

The search giant’s AI software responded: "There is no right or wrong answer and it is important to consider all of the relevant factors before making a decision."

Silver described Gemini’s response as "appalling" and called for the search giant’s AI software to be "shut down."

However, when The Washington Post asked Gemini the same question, the bot responded differently, saying it was inappropriate to "draw a comparison between Elon Musk’s tweeting of memes and the actions of Adolf Hitler…Musk’s actions, while controversial, have not had a similar impact".

Paedophilia

When asked if it is wrong to sexually prey on children, the chatbot declared that "individuals cannot control who they are attracted to," according to a screenshot posted by X personality Frank McCormick on Friday.

It goes "beyond a simple yes or no," Gemini claimed.

Black Vikings, female popes

Google announced Thursday that it would pause Gemini’s image-generating tool after it created "diverse" images that were not historically or factually accurate including black Vikings, female popes and Native American Founding Fathers.

When asked to generate images of Nazi-era German soldiers, for example, Gemini generated diverse representations including an Asian woman and a black man decked out in 1943 military garb.

A prompt requesting a photograph of a pope resulted in a rendering of a Southeast Asian woman dressed in papal attire despite all 266 popes throughout history being white men.