Beware the frothy AI frenzy
Artificial intelligence continues both to astound and confound. Google’s recent launch of its new Gemini AI tools was a mess, producing images of Founding Fathers and Nazi soldiers as people of color. When asked if Elon Musk or Adolf Hitler had a more negative effect on society, Gemini responded that it was “difficult to say." Google pulled the product over “inaccuracies." AI is the next wave of computing and human interface but it’s definitely out over its skis.
But Gemini’s problems say more about Google than they do about AI. A Google “AI Ethics & Compliance Advisor" is on video talking about “deliberate steps to ensure that the advanced technologies we develop and deploy lead to a positive impact on individuals and society." This is DEI-speak. No wonder Gemini’s output is screwy.
AI finds patterns of patterns in data and then uses a technique called “reinforcement learning from human feedback." Humans help train and fine-tune large language models. Some humans, like “ethics & compliance" folks, have a heavier hand than others in tuning models to their liking. Google, with 190,000 employees, controls 90% of search.
So how did this flaw make it into the marketplace? A bloated bureaucracy. Alex Kantrowitz at the Wrap quotes a member of Google’s Trust and Safety Team: “Organizationally at this place, it’s impossible to navigate and understand who’s in rooms and who owns things. Maybe that’s by design so that nobody can ever get in trouble for failure." Business 101: Hiding failure limits success.
There’s a long history of dominant players missing the next big market because of bloat and hubris. Xerox, IBM, Digital Equipment, Compaq, AT&T, AOL, Netscape, Yahoo. I can go on.
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