Google Pauses Gemini Image Generation

Google paused its Gemini image generation capabilities after users complained of its inaccurate and offensive output. The online giant has apologized for the gaff and will fix the feature. But meanwhile, it’s explaining what happened.

“The Gemini conversational app (formerly known as Bard) is a specific product that is separate from Search, our underlying AI models, and our other products,” Google senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan writes in a new post to Google’s corporate blog, The Keyword. “Its image generation feature was built on top of an AI model called Imagen 2.”

Given the issues we’ve seen with AI hallucinations and Google’s responsible AI stance, it’s perhaps not surprising that the company worked to ensure that Gemini’s image creation capabilities didn’t step over the line with violent or sexually explicit images or depictions of real people. It likewise wanted the service to output results that are as diverse as its global user base, with the people depicted in generated images representing a range of ethnicities.

Unfortunately, this work “missed the mark” and “the feature didn’t work well.” It became too cautious and wrongly interpreted non-sensitive prompts as sensitive, and “these two things led the model to overcompensate in some cases, and be over-conservative in others, leading to images that were embarrassing and wrong.”

For now, Google is turning off Gemini’s image creation capability and is working to improve it before re-enabling it. The firm acknowledges that this functionality will likely never be perfect, as it’s been cautioning of AI since Microsoft jump-started the AI push we’re still in the midst of.

“I can’t promise that Gemini won’t occasionally generate embarrassing, inaccurate, or offensive results — but I can promise that we will continue to take action whenever we identify an issue,” Raghavan continues. “AI is an emerging technology which is helpful in so many ways, with huge potential, and we’re doing our best to roll it out safely and responsibly.”