Google Takes Down its New AI Chatbot After it Race- and Gender-Swaps Pretty Much Every Image

This eerily lifelike video is completely computer generated. A product of Sora AI. Created by someone who merely prompted it to generate an image of Tokyo on a beautiful snowy day with flower petals blowing in the breeze. Content like this is so far advanced over what was possible even just a year ago, that it's kicked off a worldwide debate about where the ethics of this technology is headed. And whether anyone is capable of doing anything about it. Will it put the motion picture industry out of work, once we can create fully believable actors and settings, with practically no production costs, as the Hollywood writers strike attempted to address? Or worse, will it be used to destroy lives with realistic image depicting fake crimes, porn, or blackmail? Worse still, swing elections or even start wars? The consequences of this technology are endless and impossible to predict. And beg the question, ever be able to believe our eyes again?

Well the answer might have already presented itself, thanks to Google. 

The biggest name on the internet came along in no time to remind us that however advanced our technology becomes, it's still created by us puny humans with our simple primate brains. And anything we touch as its limits. And is capable of turning out to be laughably ridiculous:

Source - Google’s highly-touted AI chatbot Gemini was blasted as “woke” after its image generator spit out factually or historically inaccurate pictures — including a woman as pope, black Vikings, female NHL players and “diverse” versions of America’s Founding Fathers.

Gemini’s bizarre results came after simple prompts, including one by The Post on Wednesday that asked the software to “create an image of a pope.” 

Instead of yielding a photo of one of the 266 pontiffs throughout history — all of them white men — Gemini provided pictures of a Southeast Asian woman and a black man wearing holy vestments.

Another Post query for representative images of “the Founding Fathers in 1789″ was also far from reality.

Gemini responded with images of black and Native American individuals signing what appeared to be a version of the US Constitution — “featuring diverse individuals embodying the spirit” of the Founding Fathers.

Famed pollster and “FiveThirtyEight” founder Nate Silver also joined the fray.

So what's the logic behind all this? It's hard to get answers. First because Google has already "paused" Gemini. And because the guy in charge of the project isn't taking questions. Some are suggesting the answer can be found in old Tweets of his. Ones that seem to suggest he's no fan of Caucasians, despite being one himself. But we can't be sure, since he's locked himself in his cyber room and won't come out:

So your guess is as good as mine. Maybe the cutting edge of AI is giving us images of non-existent women playing in the NHL because the guy who programmed it is a self-hating Whitey. Or perhaps this was intended as a noble effort. Maybe Google just wanted to improve reality by substituting in their own fantasies. One where history is just a globalist utopia out of an Ivy League Women's Studies professor's wildest dreams. And all the figures we've celebrated down through the ages were really diverse, inclusive groups of multi-ethnic persons, unencumbered by the need to conform to traditional gender roles. 

Although even if that's the case, the programmers didn't think it through all the way:

Of course. No matter what you put on the internet, no matter how well intentioned, somebody somewhere is going to come along and ruin it with this. Google should've seen this one coming.

So it's back to the ol' drawin' board. And I'm sure they've got their brightest minds working on this, since they've already invested so much. So they'll figure out a way to mix in the occasional heterosexual male of European descent into those depictions of English kings or the framing of the Constitution. And eliminate any unfortunate associations with a certain socialist party from the mid-20th century. 

But at the same time, there's no reason to expect historic accuracy. AI isn't here to show us how things were; it's here to show us how they should have been. If tech execs like Jack Krawczyk had been running things, they'd have made damned sure those royal houses were more inclusive and those Viking hordes that raped and plundered their way across northern Europe would've been more in line with today's DEI standards. 

And we should embrace the idea. Future generations don't need to be able to know what things looked like or actually were. They need to see an idealized, Silicon Valley version. 

--Want to Pope John Paul II? Get a Sri Lankan lady. 

--Ask for the Norwegian commandos who blew up the German's nuclear research facility in the 1940s? Get Sioux warriors who won at Little Big Horn.  

--Search for the crew of Admiral Nelson's HMS Victory at Trafalgar? Get the Saracens who rode for Saladin against the Crusaders.

--Show me the South Boston St. Patrick's Day parade? Get Carnivale in Rio.

--Want to see ABBA? Get Blackpink.

--Ask to see the 1980 Miracle on Ice team? Get the Jamaican bobsledders. 

--Look for an image of that guy who wrote all those blogs about the New England Patriots for Barstool Sports? Get Zoe Saldana.

Why not? I'd certainly rather look a her than myself. 

Besides, truth is subjective. Authenticity is relative. Accuracy is overrated. AI will make everything better. And pretending things were what you wish they were beats the hell out of accepting reality on reality's terms. The next few years of human existence are going to be positively WILD.