Elon Musk Confirms Google is Working to Fix Gemini’s Racial Bias

X owner Elon Musk claims to have been in conversation with a senior executive from Google who confirmed to him that the tech giant is working on its recently launched Artificial Intelligence chatbot dubbed Gemini.

Elon Musk Confirms Google’s Ongoing Efforts

Musk stated that a Google executive called him on Thursday night and their conversation, which lasted for 1 hour, was centered around the fact that Google is currently working on fixing the racial and gender bias Gemini has been shown to exhibit. 

A senior exec at Google called and spoke to me for an hour last night.

He assured me that they are taking immediate action to fix the racial and gender bias in Gemini.

Time will tell.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 23, 2024

Since Google CEO Sundar Pichai teased the capabilities of Gemini, the AI chatbot has faced a lot of criticism and challenges. First, the demonstration video that was used to describe the features of the Large Language Model (LLM) received some negative reactions from members of the public. These entities believed that the video was doctored and ended up portraying more than what the AI tool could do at the time.

Later on, it was discovered that Gemini handled images based on race. This raised concerns about Gemini’s racial inclusion and Alphabet, the parent company explained that it would stop creating images of people but before that, the company made a decision to pause the creation of human images and release an enhanced version afterward. 

Musk’s statement suggests that the company has taken active measures to salvage the situation. Also, Google has unleashed an upgraded version of the Gemini 1.0 Ultra. The new version dubbed Google Gemini 1.5 tackles the challenge of long-context understanding as the firm has been able to effectively increase the volume of information that Google Gemini can process. 

AI Regulation Likely to Become Intense

The recent setback in Gemini might have a broader implication for the artificial intelligence industry. 

The advent of such issues with Google’s Gemini is likely to draw the attention of the appropriate authorities to the burgeoning AI industry. Some jurisdictions are already putting their AI regulation in place to monitor the sector. Earlier this month, the UK government hinted at its intention to release “targeted binding measures” for companies involved in creating advanced AI systems.

In the United States, President Joe Biden’s administration is also moving ahead with its AI regulation. The move was propelled by a similar movement in the European Union. Markedly, the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has also weighed in on the matter and decided to double down on ensuring the safety of AI systems.