Google’s market value plunged by $90 billion on Monday amid controversies surrounding its new generative AI service Gemini. The ultra-woke AI became instantly famous for erasing white people from history, facing widespread mockery for not only its wildly inaccurate images, but also defending pedophilia and Joseph Stalin.
Forbes reports that Alphabet stock fell 4.5 percent on Monday to close at $138.75, its lowest price since early January. The selloff came as the company grappled with backlash over accuracy and bias issues with its nascent generative AI service, Gemini.
Gemini, which features an AI chatbot and image generator, inaccurately depicted historical figures by erasing white people from history over the weekend. This led Google to apologize and take its image service offline temporarily to reassess its quality controls. The chatbot also drew fire for refusing to condemn Adolf Hitler as more negatively impactful than businessman Elon Musk, and refusing to say if Libs of TikTok or Joseph Stalin was worse for humanity. The AI system even defended pedophilia.
Breitbart News reported on the Gemini failure and the AI producing ultra-woke and factually incorrect images when asked to generate pictures. Prompts provided to the chatbot yielded bizarre results like a female pope, black Vikings, and gender-swapped versions of famous paintings and photographs.
When asked to create an image of a pope, Gemini generated photos of a Southeast Asian woman and a black man dressed in papal vestments, despite the fact that all 266 popes in history have been white men.
New game: Try to get Google Gemini to make an image of a Caucasian male. I have not been successful so far. pic.twitter.com/1LAzZM2pXF
— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) February 21, 2024
The stumbles with Gemini’s launch represent the latest setback for Google in the high-stakes race to develop advanced generative AI responsibly. Rival Microsoft currently appears ahead in product development and rollout. Google famously lost over $100 billion in market value last year when its AI chatbot Bard made factual errors in a press event.
Analysts said the controversies threaten to damage consumer trust in Google’s brand as an authoritative and unbiased source of information. This could have long-term implications for its core search business as AI plays an increasing role in generating search results.
“If Google is seen as an unreliable source for AI to a portion of the population, that isn’t good for business,” wrote analysts at Melius Research.
Loop Capital’s Rob Sanderson said the Gemini debacle was a “meaningful blunder in the PR battle surrounding [generative AI].” He added that it suggested Google was “trailing and mis-executing in a fast-moving and high-stakes space.”
Read more at Forbes here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.