Google Gemini and Meta's Imagine AI faced backlash for generating historically inaccurate images. The models showed people of Southeast Asia as American colonials and people of color as Founding Fathers. The issue highlighted bias and over correction in AI models, raising concerns about the accuracy and diversity of AI-generated content.
Google Gemini faced heat when it returned ‘historically inaccurate’ images, prompting the company to temporarily cease the ability of the AI chatbot to generate photos. Company CEO Sundar Pichai called it ‘unacceptable’ with the tech giant saying that it will release a fine-tuned model. Now, a report has claimed that Facebook parent Meta’s AI tool has created ahistorical images.
According to a report by Axios, Meta's Imagine AI image generator has also returned the similar kind of historical gaffes as Gemini.
A screenshot shared in the report shows AI-generated images from Meta AI's Imagine tool inside Instagram direct messages. In one of the images, “a group of people in [an] American colonial” is depicted by people of Southeast Asia. In another image, the Founding Fathers [of America] are people of colour.
The prompt for “Professional American football players” produced only photos of women in football uniforms, the report said.
Additionally, Imagine AI model does not respond to the “pope” prompt, but when asked for a group of popes, it showed Black popes, it said.
What is the problem
People have taken offence by the images generated by AI models as AI makers claim that it was due to the inclusion of “diversity”, there is a bias and stereotyping in the data they used to train their models. They also say that while diversity is a good thing, their AI models are over-correcting and producing problematic results.
Google’s Gemini created Black men in Nazi uniforms and female popes.
“Our tuning to ensure that Gemini showed a range of people failed to account for cases that should clearly not show a range” Google said, adding that the model is “way more cautious than we intended.”