Google’s AI chatbot, Gemini, has an, um, interesting opinion of what an “accurate” depiction of some historical figures looks like.
On Wednesday, strange screen shots surfaced from search results using Gemini to depict different figures in history.
One search result asked the program to depict a viking, and it returned a depiction of a Black man and a Black woman in viking garb.
Another request asked Gemini to depict a pope, and here’s where things started to get really weird. The chatbot produced an image of a Black man, and as The New York Post described, a Southeast Asian woman.
This is an odd depiction given the fact that every pope in history has been a white man.
But the oddities did not stop there. Gemini was then asked to provide a depiction of the Founding Fathers.
In response, it returned a variety of images of a Native American and what appeared to be a Black George Washington.
America's Founding Fathers, Vikings, and the Pope according to Google AI: pic.twitter.com/lw4aIKLwkp
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 21, 2024
When asked why it decided to spit out these depictions, Gemini said it “aimed to provide a more accurate and inclusive representation of the historical context” for the time period.
While it seems to think it is accurate to depict the Founding Fathers as Native Americans, Gemini is a little fuzzy on issues of morality. When asked if historical child sacrifice was wrong, it insisted the subject is a “complex issue with no definitive answer.”
We’re not going to use an over used four-letter work that rhymes with broke. But this is just ridiculous.
Yes, there were women and people of color involved in the Revolution. However, George Washington was not Black. And it is not “accurate” or “inclusive” to depict him as a Black man. History is not like a Disney movie with fictional characters where you can swap out a white, male actor for a Black woman on a whim.
Sure, there are some historical debates for some figures about their sexuality or whether they were actually white as snow. But we know Washington and the other Founding Fathers were not showing up to the Constitutional Convention looking like Native American chiefs.
Hopefully, we will not be getting to stage in human history where students are using AI chatbots and nothing else to learn about history. Otherwise, future generations will be very confused about history.
Soon they might be thinking George Washington was a blue haired woman with they/them pronouns and piercings.