Elon Musk accuses Google AI of “racist, anti-civilizational programming”

Google halts Gemini AI's image generation amid controversy over historical inaccuracies.

New Delhi: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk have accused Google of running “racist, anti-civilisational programming” with its artificial intelligence (AI) models.

This comes after Google paused the ability for Gemini AI to generate images of people, as controversy erupted over inaccuracies in AI-generated historical images.

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“I’m glad that Google overplayed their hand with their AI image generation, as it made their insane racist, anti-civilisational programming clear to all,” Musk wrote on X.

The controversy erupted when images generated by Gemini AI depicted specific white figures (like the US ‘Founding Fathers’) Nazi-era German soldiers as “people of colour”.

In an earlier statement, the company said it was aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions.

“Gemini’s AI image generation does generate a wide range of people. And that’s generally a good thing because people around the world use it. But it’s missing the mark here,” the company had admitted.

The Tesla billionaire also targeted Gemini’s product lead, Jack Krawczyk.

Krawczyk stated on Wednesday that Gemini’s image-generating skills are designed to “reflect our global user base.”

“I’m not picking on some rando. This nut is a big part of why Google’s AI is so racist & sexist,” Musk wrote.

In addition, the tech billionaire stated that he did a Google search on his phone and noticed that the “top two choices are pro-censorship.”

Google started offering image generation via its Gemini (formerly Bard) AI platform earlier this month.