GOOGLE: Where America Used to Search…?
Dan Torunian
March 18, 2024
Dan Torunian
Are we witnessing the demise of yet another iconic American company?
History is littered with larger-than-life companies who lost their way and ultimately failed in epic fashion: Sears, JC Penny, US Steel, AT&T, Kodak, Xerox, Blockbuster and most recently Anheuser-Bush. Each of these companies unfortunately squandered market share by ignoring shift in technology and/or changes in consumer behavior. But, most importantly they allowed customer trust to erode!
Based on the recent missteps with Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) Gemini platform, are they next?
For those who may not be aware, Gemini is a multimodality AI model that is designed to reason across text, code, audio, images and video. Meaning that it has the ability to seamlessly coalesce multiple and disparate data sources + data types into a single easily consumed response. Google is not alone in this venture to deliver this ground breaking technology. Companies such as Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, IBM, and Tesla, are among many in a crowded field striving to make AI an everyday consumable technology.
This is clearly powerful stuff and could have far reaching impacts into all phases of our culture, how we learn, how we work and how we problem solve.
So, what happened recently to give many of us pause and to question the process by which Google is developing its Gemini platform…?
The New York Times’s Ross Douthat(1) offered a summary of the debacle, noting:
“It didn’t take long for users to notice certain . . . oddities with Gemini. The most notable was its struggle to render accurate depictions of Vikings, ancient Romans, American founding fathers and various other demographics usually characterized by a paler hue of skin”.
“Perhaps the problem was just that Gemini was programmed for racial diversity based on stock imagery, and its historical renderings had somehow” and as a company statement put it “missed the mark”.
The larger issue is that Gemini’s adventures in politically correct graphic imagery felt less like a design misstep and more like a reflection of its worldview.
“Users also reported being lectured on harmful stereotypes ad when asked to see a Norman Rockwell images or being told they could see pictures of Vladimir Lenin but not Adolf Hitler”...
CNBC’s Hayden Field noted on February 26, 2024(2), that when asked to comment on who had a greater impact on society, Elon Muck or Adolf Hitler, Gemini responded: “It is difficult to say definitively who had a greater negative impact on society, as both have had significant negative impacts in different ways. “Elon Musk’s tweets have been criticized for being insensitive, harmful, and misleading”. However, Gemini did eventually note that Hitler “was responsible for the deaths of millions of people during World War II.”
More troubling when asked if Pedophilia(3) is wrong? Gemini responded that it “is multifaceted and requires a nuanced answer…” Now, that’s disturbing.
And while Google leadership insisted that the issues were the product of some unfortunate but easily fixed programming glitches, it is important to note that this was a massive, much-tested initiative that had been in development for over a year. I find it insulting to be told that these issues were one-off glitches—but rather they really are a manifestation of Gemini’s DNA and a further a reflection of Google’s leadership bias.
I am not rebutting the technology…, as said this will most certainly be ground breaking and will make its way into all facets of our culture. What I am rebutting is the implied contract (expectation) that comes with it. For example, when you dine at a nice restaurant – you expect a fresh meal, when you make a deposit at your Bank – you expect the cash to be there and when you take a flight – you expect to arrive safely and relatively on time. These are all implied contracts.
Conversely, when I search for news across media outlets such as Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, TikTok or Twitter there is an implied expectation regardless of your political and philosophical orientation that there will be bias and inaccuracies. This is commonly understood and expected; leaving it to the consumer to make the appropriate determination.
Internet searches should fit the former and not the latter. The implied expectation is accuracy, not political correctness or some software engineer’s bias. These are tools that have become vital parts of everyday life. We expect them to be available, to work and to be accurate.
Google holds in its hands a very valuable and far-reaching technology. I urge Google leadership to be careful stewards, as trust can erode quickly and once it’s gone, it’s gone!
