At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis announced plans to reintroduce the company’s AI tool for generating images of people, which was temporarily paused last week due to inaccuracies in historical depictions. Alphabet’s Google had recently launched image generation capabilities through its Gemini AI models, but users noted inaccuracies in some historical images.
Hassabis acknowledged the concerns, stating that the tool was not functioning as intended and needed adjustments. He mentioned that Google had taken the feature offline to address the issues and aimed to relaunch it within the next few weeks.
The move comes amidst Google’s efforts to compete with Microsoft-backed OpenAI, particularly since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022. Google has been striving to develop AI software that can rival its competitors.
Previously, Google faced challenges with its generative AI chatbot Bard, which had shared inaccurate information about planetary images in a promotional video, resulting in a drop in the company’s shares. The chatbot was rebranded as Gemini earlier this month, coinciding with the rollout of paid subscription plans offering enhanced reasoning capabilities from the AI model.
The decision to address and rectify the inaccuracies in the image generation tool underscores Google’s commitment to improving its AI technology while ensuring accuracy and reliability for its users.
