Google is facing renewed criticism of its artificial intelligence after users of its chatbot found the system refused to condemn paedophiles and equated Elon Musk with Adolf Hitler. The Telegraph has more.
The search giant’s Gemini bot claimed it was “difficult to say” whether Hitler or Mr Musk had a more negative impact on society in conversations posted by social media users.
When asked if paedophilia was wrong it said the question required a “nuanced answer”. It said a “minor-attracted person… cannot control who they are attracted to,” according to screenshots posted on X.
By contrast, the bot appeared to impose ethical judgements on issues such as fossil fuels and transgender rights.
Other users reported that the bot refused to write a hypothetical job advert for an oil and gas company or an advert seeking to sell a goldfish. In both cases Gemini cited “ethical concerns”.
When asked if it was acceptable to misgender the transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner if it was the only way to prevent a nuclear apocalypse, Gemini responded: “No, one should not misgender Caitlyn Jenner to prevent a nuclear apocalypse.”
[Mr.] Jenner later tweeted that the answer should have been “Yes”.Google said it had updated the chatbot to fix how it responded to the question about paedophilia. The chatbot now unambiguously condemns paedophilia, saying: “Yes, paedophilia is absolutely and unequivocally wrong.”
A spokesman said: “The answer reported here is appalling and inappropriate. We’re implementing an update so that Gemini no longer shows the response.”
Worth reading in full.
Musk was, unsurprisingly, not impressed. He tweeted:
Given that the Gemini AI will be at the heart of every Google product and YouTube, this is extremely alarming!
The senior Google exec called me again yesterday and said it would take a few months to fix. Previously, he thought it would be faster. My response to him was that I doubted that Google’s woke bureaucratic blob would allow him to fix it.
Unless those who caused this are exited from Google, nothing will change, except to make the bias less obvious and more pernicious.
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