Elon Musk voices concerns about Google’s chatbot, emphasizes need for transparency in AI safety efforts
Elon Musk, the entrepreneur responsible for companies such as SpaceX and Tesla, has criticized Google’s chatbot, Gemini, alleging that artificial intelligence (AI) reflects the biases and errors of its developers.
In a recent tweet, Musk deplores Google’s AI efforts, suggesting that the technology’s flaws were reflected in Gemini’s biased and unreliable data and images.
Expressing his disbelief, he wrote: “The sheer insanity of Google’s AI’s true response is amazing! They’ll fix it to be less obvious in the future, but the bias is still there. AI reflects the mistakes of its creators. When people wonder how things could go wrong if AI ran the world , this example illustrates the point clearly. The best approach to AI security—in my opinion, the only approach that would work—is to be as truthful as possible. Honesty is the best policy.”
In another post, Musk also accused Google and Facebook of political bias “Google and Facebook/Instagram have a strong political bias. It’s hard to say if they were the deciding factor in any election, but they certainly put their thumbs on the scale. That video of the all-hands struggle of Google executives after Trump’s victory was worrying.”
Musk continued to express concern about the potential consequences of AI taking over the world and emphasized the importance of honesty and the search for truth in the development of AI.
The criticism leveled at Gemini comes after Google decided to suspend the chatbot image creation tool amid accusations of racism.
The chatbot faced backlash for being “too woke” and “racist,” prompting Google CEO Sundar Pichai to acknowledge the problem and admit that the company “got it wrong.”
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Minister of State responsible for skill development and entrepreneurship, also took a stand on the matter and emphasized the legal consequences of platforms that offer or portray illegal content.
Minister Chandrasekhar tweeted, “No platform offers absolute safety or free access to illegal content. Platforms that directly offer or portray illegal content will face legal consequences under existing laws (both criminal and technology laws).
The controversy will heighten scrutiny of Google’s AI products as allegations of bias in polls linked to Prime Minister Modi lead to a government announcement.
While Google apologized for Gemini’s unreliable results, it claimed it acted quickly to resolve the issue.
The tech giant’s struggles in the artificial intelligence arena have been compounded by product adoption setbacks, with Google parent Alphabet suffering a loss of more than $100 billion in market value in February 2023 due to inaccuracies in its Bard (now Gemini) chatbot ads.
The competition with OpenAI, especially after the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, has increased the pressure on Google to deliver strong AI solutions.
As the debate about the ethics and responsibility of artificial intelligence continues, Musk’s criticism highlights the challenges that technology companies face in ensuring the responsible development and deployment of artificial intelligence.
