“It's embarrassingly hard to get Google Gemini to acknowledge that white people exist,” Debarghya Das. People who ask Gemini to create an image of America’s white founding fathers get pictures of Black people. So, why is Gemini generating headaches for Google? Actually, it’s as simple as Black and white.
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When ChatGPT came out, people looked to embarrass the new tech by feeding it nuanced prompts that they hoped would force errors. Then, they’d stomp their feet, yell, scream, and point fingers at AI’s inherent racism. Newsflash. AI isn’t smart enough to be racist.
Mostly, the errors hewed overly white. When Google released their imagine generator a few days ago, they overcorrected to avoid white racism. So, now, a new batch of feet-stompers and finger-pointers are saying Google is training its AI to be racist. Intentionally.
One of these yahoos sent me this note, “Other LLMs don’t do this. So I’m inclined to think the people at Google who are overseeing Gemini guidelines are anti-Israel ideologues.” Look, I hate Google as much as anyone in the eight decile. But, even I’m not crazy enough to think Google would release a blatantly racist product. What’s their upside?
We read Jack Dorsey’s minions put their finger on the scale to tilt Twitter. We hear Meta does the same. We know TikTok does it. Find me a curation engine, especially for news, and I’ll find you one that takes sides. In a world of dishonest big tech brokers, Google is one of the less dishonest ones.
Google has two issues. One, they overcorrected to avoid the white racism issues ChatGPT had. Two they index more content than any company on the planet. Fixing the former is easy. Adjust the settings. It will take a little bit of time and some tinkering, but they’ll get there. Case in point, Google has taken down Gemini’s image creator and says it will be back soon.
The second thing is a much bigger problem and goes way beyond AI. Gemini’s lousy images reflect the internet as a whole. And, as a whole, the internet is a hole.
Growing up in the early 70s, other than the Verb episode of Schoolhouse Rock, I saw nothing but white people on TV. I’m not white, but in my mind, TV is. These days, it’s amazing how often I see a TV commercial and my inner monologue asks, “Hey, where did all white guys go?” What do you expect the internet to look like when mass media looks not white? That same internet feeds Gemini.
AI is nice and all, but to Google, this is AI -> . and this is search -> O.
If you think Gemini is a problem, we’re going to need a different unit to measure the cosmic issue Google has for search. Turning to the stars, I’m going to say it’s a Googleplex times bigger than that meteor the size of 16 washing machines that passed by Earth the other day.
So, where can Google find quality rather than quantity? Reddit. Google and Reddit are a match made in heaven.
Reddit’s owners need the money-losing, no-growth, social-esque platform to go public so they can take chips off the table. But 10% top-line ad growth is meh. Amazon, Walmart, and Instacart are growing ad revenue three times faster. And, with less than a billion in revenue, Reddit’s ad numbers make Twitter’s woeful 2023 ad revenue look stellar.
Enter Google. Google offers up 60 mil a year for multiple years to scrape Reddit’s community of real people. Bingo. New revenue and a press release for Reddit.
Here’s the key part from Google’s press release.
Google now has access to Reddit’s Data API, which delivers real-time, structured, unique content from their large and dynamic platform. With the Reddit Data API, Google will now have efficient and structured access to fresher information, as well as enhanced signals that will help us better understand Reddit content and display, train on, and otherwise use it in the most accurate and relevant ways.
Did you read AI in there? No. Neither did I. “Train on” was as close as it got. People think the Reddit deal was for AI. It wasn’t. It was for search. Figuring that out was a layup. Here’s my half-court, buzzer beater. If Reddit’s stock doesn’t sizzle and its market cap stays under $10B into next year, I expect Google will buy it.
So, yeah, I read it too.
