Google to relaunch ‘woke’ Gemini AI image tool in few weeks: ‘Not working the way we intended’

Google said it plans to relaunch its artificial intelligence image generation software within the next few weeks after taking it offline in response to an uproar over what critics called “absurdly woke” depictions of historical scenes.

Though the Gemini chatbot remains up and running, Google paused its image AI feature last week after it generated female NHL players, African American Vikings and Founding Fathers, as well as an Asian woman dressed in 1943 military garb when asked for an image of a Nazi-era German soldier.

“We have taken the feature offline while we fix that. We are hoping to have that back online very shortly in the next couple of weeks, few weeks,” Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said Monday.

The tool was not “working the way we intended,” Hassabis added, speaking on a panel at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Since Google has not published the parameters that govern the Gemini chatbot’s behavior, it is difficult to get a clear explanation of why the software was inventing diverse versions of historical figures and events.

Elsewhere, a prompt requesting photographs of a pope resulted in an image of a Southeast Asian woman dressed in papal attire — a far cry from any of the 266 popes throughout history, all of whom have been white men.