Peter Kafka
The rise of AI technology has brought forth new challenges, prompting the question, “What are our expectations from these systems, after all?”
- Discrimination concerns hindered the launch of Google’s Gemini AI robot.
- “Woke” initiatives within Big Tech fueled internal disagreements.
- The failure of Google’s flagship AI bot is perceived by some as a significant misstep.
Amidst the chaotic release of Google’s flawed Gemini AI, where the company’s efforts to address bias resulted in a hilariously skewed AI bot, tensions are running high.
The situation resembles a heavy-handed woke initiative that Elon Musk and his allies have long criticized Big Tech for. Google’s substantial backing of this endeavor has only intensified the debate.
It brings to mind the incident where Twitter briefly restricted the dissemination of a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop from the 2020 New York Post, a blunder that Ted Cruz was quick to highlight.
Internet culture observer Max Read offers a poignant perspective on the matter. However, the fundamental question remains – what are we expecting our AI bots to achieve?
The inquiry of “how did this happen” or “why did this occur” pales in comparison to the deeper questions of intent and purpose behind the actions of these machines. Is it truly valuable or enlightening to prompt a system to draw parallels between polarizing figures like Pol Pot and Martha Stewart? Entrusting a probabilistic text generator with moral judgments and critical thinking seems like an alien concept to me, and the notion of chatbots generating text that compares historical figures morally is perplexing. The idea that Gemini’s assertion that Hitler is worse than Elon Musk could have any meaningful impact is beyond my comprehension.
It is plausible for two conflicting viewpoints to coexist: the exaggerated reactions within the Elonsphere contrasted with the genuine scandal surrounding Gemini.
While the general public may remain unaware of these intricacies, internally at Google, the situation is viewed as a significant blunder. This was meant to be Google’s bold leap into the future. While the skepticism around AI bots being completely reliable due to “hallucinations” exists, the concern that chatbots may intentionally provide inaccurate information is a separate issue altogether.
In agreement with Read’s perspective, the question arises – what are the true capabilities and limitations of these technologies? While they excel in summarizing language, as evident from the AI-generated bullet points above, the broader applications, particularly those where chatbots serve as indispensable allies in a profound manner as envisioned by tech luminary Marc Andreessen, are yet to materialize.
Perhaps it is time for a collective pause to reflect on the essence of this technology and its current boundaries.
