Gemini Proved Too Much Inclusivity Can Be Racist | The Hi-Tech Discussion

In the same week I was harassed by an Austrian man for not being as fair-skinned as he is and being too successful for my skin tone, Google decides to turn inclusivity into more racism.

But that's only one of the many, many news this weeks brings, so let's get right in and welcome back to the Hidalgo Tech Discussion: The weekly recap that saves you the pain of doomscrolling through endless news to try and understand what's going on in the industry.

Google Gemini: When Inclusion Turns Into Its Opposite

Imagine you're thirsty, walking in the desert with no water. You walk by several other travelers but all of them refuse to quench your thirst – and you resent them.

Now imagine one of them gives you a glass of water. You're happy, right?

Well, you would probably still be happy if they threw a bucket of water at you after giving you the glass. After all, it's hot in the desert.

But how would you feel if they gave you a glass of water, threw a bucket of water and you, then tied you to a chair, covered your face with a cloth, and began pouring water on your heat. That would be waterboarding.

What Google did is more or less the same: In a bid to maximize diversity, the chart's programmers ended up denying European and "white" history by creating black Vikings, female Chinese knights in full plate armor, and brown female Popes.

Now, you might think I'm exaggerating, but imagine if I (a Venezuelan) asked an AI model to generate an image of Yanomami indigenous warriors... and it generated half naked white folks. Or what if I asked AI to generate an image of Malcolm X speaking and the system made him Chinese, or blond?

By the way, in the image above you can see George Washington and the Pope.

I think I made my point here – you can use inclusivity to create diversity, just like you would give someone water to quench their thirst, or you can take it to the extreme and turn it into its opposite, just like you waterboarding someone would actually be a violent act.

I'm glad Google didn't get away with this one.

Women in AI

Talking about inclusivity, let's discuss the inclusivity that really matters – and not the fake one Google programmers tries to shove down our throats: This week, TechCrunch wrote an amazing article (find it here) about the women who are making a difference in AI.

The article is promoting their new interview series focusing on remarkable women that helped and are helping change the world with AI. Here's the shortlist:

• Irene Solaiman , Head of Global Policy at Hugging Face
• Eva Maydell (Paunova) , member of the EU Parliament that contributed to the AI Act
• Lee Tiedrich , AI expert at the Global Partnership on AI
• Rashida Richardson , Senior Counsel on AI & Privacy at Mastercard
• Krystal Kauffman , Research Fellow at the The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR)

The article also discusses gender pay gaps in AI, and links to interviews with these extraordinary women – so I invite you to just go ahead and read it over on TechCrunch's website.

Electric Cars: Is The Dream Over?

Some relationships last a lifetime. Some others, mostly lust-driven, last 2 years before infatuation fades. And, if we are to admit that profit is the free market's equivalent of lust, would it be safe to also wonder if our love with EVs wasn't love after all?

These were the thoughts that came to me when I read that Mercedes-Benz AG is reducing expectations on electric cars, and has decided to focus back on its combustion engines. Mercedes was expecting 50% of its sales to come from electrified units by 2025 – a goal that has now shifted to 2030.

And that could've been one, isolated case but then I found out Ford Motor Company is slashing prices on electric Mustangs in a bid to outcompete Tesla and their price-optimized vehicles.

To add insult to injury, Rivian joined the Layoff Season and cut 10% of employees and seems to put all eggs in one basked by betting on its upcoming affordable model, the R2.

The culprit? Demand for EVs is dwindling. On tip of that, the relenting economy and the supply chain being far from smooth due to all the shitshow happening in the world aren't making things any easier.

Tesla decided to give the impression of high demand by slashing prices every quarter in 2024. And yet, as a positioning expert, I can tell you that racing to the bottom is a death spiral, and that it won't turn out well neither for Tesla, Ford or Mercedes.

Stable Diffusion 3

The AI news never ever stop. After OpenAI released Sora's preview, Stability AI hits back with Stable Diffusion 3.

The model, not yet available to everyone, is their most powerful yet and it ranges from 800M parameters to 8B parameters, and it'll require you a solid, reliable and performant GPU if you want to make the most of it.

The company has also taken a stand in favor of safety, announcing that:

We have taken and continue to take reasonable steps to prevent the misuse of Stable Diffusion 3 by bad actors. Safety starts when we begin training our model and continues throughout the testing, evaluation, and deployment. In preparation for this early preview, we’ve introduced numerous safeguards.

And talking about safety...

The AI Community vs Deepfakes

After Twitter has been filled with an outrageous amount of fake porn, from the talented Taylor Swift to the famous industry plant Bobbi Althoff, 500 people within the AI community came together to sign an open letter against deepfakes.

In the letter, deepfakes are described as a growing threat to society – which they are, if you remember that fake Joe Biden voice calling people to tell them who to vote, and if you imagine yourself in court, looking at footage of you engaging in a crime you didn't commit.

Among the people signing the letter, there are individuals from OpenAI, from Google DeepMin, Amazon, Apple and even Microsoft.

Will it have an effect on real-life regulation? Probably not.

Am I happy 500 people still stood up and signed this? Abso-fucking-lutely. If we don't control AI generated pornography, our society will be in for a massive wave of child-related material and teenage suicide.

In Other News

• Gmail is not going away: This weeks there were fake reports of Gmail getting retired. It is NOT true. What's going away is the HTML view for Gmail. And let me give you some 2008 advice: Stop believing everything you see on the internet.
• Tinder & IDs: Apparently, Tinder not only requires ID verification in some countries, but it is expanding the feature to the US, UK, Brazil and Mexico. I'm happily not single, but even if I were, I would never give my ID to these folks. If you're single, take some 2008 advice again: Just socialize with people in real life, not everything has to happen from a screen, lol.
• Goodbye period pain: Samphire Neuroscience is doing a favor to all women by developing a drug-free alternative to manage pain and mood problems during your period. How? Well, through a wearable. Cool, right?

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