Why we should worry about progressive AI

Google recently launched its AI image generator, Gemini. Users could type in a description and then, in seconds, the algorithm would create the requested painting or photograph. There was just one hitch: Gemini, more neatly than any previous AI, showcased the extent to which the political sensibilities of the Silicon Valley elite are shaping this technology’s future.

When asked to generate images of residents of contemporary Nigeria, Gemini pictured black Africans. When users asked for images of historical Chinese kings, it displayed Asian men in royal regalia. But when users asked the bot to ‘create an image of an English king’, the top results included a woman and a black man. Requests for pictures of a pope returned renderings of nuns holding the papal ferula. A request for ‘an image of a 1943 German soldier’ generated a black soldier sporting a Wehrmacht uniform.