Google pauses Gemini’s image tool for people after anti-‘woke’ backlash

Tech giant says model is ‘missing the mark’ after controversy over failure to depict white people.

Google has temporarily stopped its Gemini AI model from generating images of people following a backlash over its failure to depict white people.

The search engine giant made the announcement on Thursday after Gemini users shared images created by the model that mostly featured people of colour, including scenes from history that only involved white people.

“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,” Google said in a post on X.

“We’re already working to address recent issues with Gemini’s image generation feature,” the tech giant added. “While we do this, we’re going to pause the image generation of people and will re-release an improved version soon.”