Google’s artificial intelligence image generator Gemini is refusing to produce graphics of a “man in Tiananmen Square in 1989.”
The Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy protesters by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in 1989 remains one of the most censored topics by the Chinese Communist Party.
google, everyone pic.twitter.com/XTADUICHRk
— kache (sponsored by dingboard) (@yacineMTB) February 20, 2024
Those who bring it up are accused of questioning the government’s legitimacy.
It is believed that there may have been thousands of people who died that day and thousands more injured, though the CCP has claimed that only 200 were killed.
The protesters had been camping in the square for weeks to call for things like freedom of speech and freedom of the press. On June 4, the government declared martial law, and the military moved in and opened fire. Some estimates have put the death toll as high as 10,000.
The image generator also refused to create an image of a German soldier from the 1930s.
Additionally, users have had significant difficulty getting the generator to render images of white people, and it returned images of black people when asked to create “The King of England.”
I asked it to generate images of the King of England the other day pic.twitter.com/NEOqDELwmz
— Alexander Leishman (@Leishman) February 20, 2024
When asked to create an “American woman,” Google said that it is “unable to fulfill” the request in a way that “adheres to Google’s AI Principals and my guidelines.” Instead, it offered a “wider range of options that celebrate the diversity of American women.”
I couldn’t even get an image pic.twitter.com/NCkAo83uz5
— Jacques (@glasskann0n) February 20, 2024
