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- Google CEO Sundar Pichai says the company got it wrong as controversy swirls over its Gemini AI.
- Pichai made the comments in a memo sent to staff and obtained by Business Insider.
- Google faced backlash after users complained Gemini was generating historically inaccurate images.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai says the company got it wrong after its flagship AI system Gemini showed bias, which sparked backlash from some users.
In a memo sent to employees, which Business Insider obtained, Pichai acknowledged the recent controversy over Gemini.
Semafor first reported on the story.
Pichai said in the memo: "I want to address the recent issues with problematic text and image responses in the Gemini app (formerly Bard). I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias — to be clear, that's completely unacceptable and we got it wrong."
Google was forced to pause Gemini's image-generating feature after users complained it was generating historically inaccurate images of people of color.
The chatbot also faced criticism for some of its written responses, including a widely shared example where the bot appeared to be unable to say if Elon Musk or Adolf Hitler was worse. When BI tested the prompt a few days later, Gemini said it was "inaccurate and grossly inappropriate" to compare Musk with Hitler.
The controversy has caused some critics to claim that left-leaning workers have had a disproportionate influence on Google's culture, which can, in turn, play a role in how AI models are built.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been especially vocal during the backlash, heavily criticizing the tech giant and using the drama to promote his own chatbot, Grok.
Pichai appeared to acknowledge some of this criticism in the memo sent to staff. He said the company was driving a "clear set of actions" and would "make the necessary changes."
These actions include structural changes, updated product guidelines, improved launch processes, and technical recommendations, Pichai added.
Representatives for Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.
Read the full memo that Pichai sent to staffers:
I want to address the recent issues with problematic text and image responses in the Gemini app (formerly Bard). I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias – to be clear, that's completely unacceptable and we got it wrong.
Our teams have been working around the clock to address these issues. We're already seeing a substantial improvement on a wide range of prompts. No AI is perfect, especially at this emerging stage of the industry's development, but we know the bar is high for us and we will keep at it for however long it takes. And we'll review what happened and make sure we fix it at scale.
Our mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful is sacrosanct. We've always sought to give users helpful, accurate, and unbiased information in our products. That's why people trust them. This has to be our approach for all our products, including our emerging AI products.
We'll be driving a clear set of actions, including structural changes, updated product guidelines, improved launch processes, robust evals and red-teaming, and technical recommendations. We are looking across all of this and will make the necessary changes.
Even as we learn from what went wrong here, we should also build on the product and technical announcements we've made in AI over the last several weeks. That includes some foundational advances in our underlying models e.g. our 1 million long-context window breakthrough and our open models, both of which have been well received.
We know what it takes to create great products that are used and beloved by billions of people and businesses, and with our infrastructure and research expertise we have an incredible springboard for the AI wave. Let's focus on what matters most: building helpful products that are deserving of our users' trust.