Is the Gemini fallout a “light bud moment” for Google?

Google is facing backlash over accusations that the company is “woke” after revealing that its new artificial intelligence tool, Gemini, was developed with bias against white people.

The Alphabet-owned tech giant is scrambling to the right ship after shutting down Gemini's photo creation features last week, with CEO Sundar Pichai tells employees On Tuesday, the company was working “around the clock” to fix the tool's bias, and called the images generated by the model “completely unacceptable.”

However, Public founder Michael Shellenberger says the fallout over Gemini is Google's “Bud Light moment,” likening the situation to what Anheuser-Busch InBev faced after a boycott of its Bud Light brand following a partnership with controversial transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

“The problem with Google, as with Bud Light before it, is that its CEO and other senior executives continue to deny the problem,” Shellenberger told FOX Business in an emailed statement. “They think the problem lies in some tweak to the artificial intelligence or algorithms.”

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The journalist and author says it will take more than just fixing Gemini for Google to regain public trust.

Google's senior director of product management for Gemini issued an apology after its AI refused to serve up images of white people. (Photo by Betul Abali/Anadolu via Getty Images/Getty Images)

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“The real problem is that Google is a tool of its own woke workers and government contractors, who manipulate Google Search and Google Gemini to divide the American people along racial and partisan lines, censor unfavorable viewpoints, and spread misinformation about everyone from German farmers to American investigative reporters,” Shellenberger wrote. “.

He added: “Google's CEO must ditch denial and commit to political neutrality, which means nonpartisan and balanced political donations, nonpartisan and transparent fact-checking that is accountable for his biases and errors, and an end to censorship of politically unfavorable viewpoints.” .

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Jessica Melogen, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Center for Technology and Innovation, says she doesn't think Google's problems rise to the same level as Bud Light's.

“I think they're different in that Bud Light was a marketing mistake, while Gemini was a product mistake,” Melogen told FOX Business. “I think the parallel would be tainted beer.”

Melogen said she can see how some might see a common thread in terms of political leaning, but she noted that generative AI competitors have had poor results in the other direction as well, so she believes Gemini's problems can be attributed to a quality control issue.

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“Whatever the reason for the bad results, Google has plenty of incentives to fix them,” she said, pointing to the rout Alphabet stock has taken since it paused Gemini.