Has Google gone too woke? Why even the biggest models still struggle with guardrails
We recorded 12 claims from this post. 7 were checked against evidence. 5 can’t be checked. 3 more are held. Read the post at its source.
Claims from this post (12)
In the order they appear in the post. Each quotation is the speaker’s words in this post. A label such as “Supported” or “Can’t be checked” is the claim’s current assessment; its page has the evidence and the reasons.
Assessment: SupportedSaid
“You might have thought that the overactive guardrail problem would have been solved by now, what with billions more invested and ever-bigger models, not to mention the cultural backlash from the right. You’d be wrong.”
What we tested: Despite billions more in investment and bigger models, the overactive guardrail problem in AI chatbots has not been solved as of February 2024.
What happened: The reporter directly tested ordinary portrait requests and observed refusals. This establishes that excessive restrictions persisted in a major assistant during the target period; a news test supplies the dated example missing from the provider's disclosure. (The Daily Dot, )
Assessment: SupportedSaid
“It’s a general issue.”
What we tested: Gemini's historically inaccurate diversity in generated images is a general issue, not limited to popes.
What happened: The reporters reproduced inappropriate demographic depictions for German soldiers and nineteenth-century US senators, including female senators. These are separate historical subjects beyond popes; the report also records a more appropriate Founding Fathers result. (The Verge, )
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“At the same time, the system seemed yesterday (I imagine it will be partly patched soon) wildly too restrictive on some other queries:”
What we tested: Gemini's overly restrictive responses to some queries will likely be partly patched soon.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“In fact, I would go as far as to say that I actually think that it is good that Google is trying here (albeit clearly ineptly).”
What we tested: It is good that Google is trying to counter minority underrepresentation in generated images, though it is doing so ineptly.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“But here’s the thing. The AI we have got now isn’t really up to the job. Getting the delicate balance here right is way outside current AI’s wheelhouse.”
What we tested: Current AI is not capable of getting the balance between cultural sensitivity and historical accuracy right.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“Getting AI to behave in a culturally-sensitive yet historically accurate way is hard for two reasons, one having to do with data and cultural change, the other with intelligence.”
What we tested: Making AI culturally sensitive yet historically accurate is hard because of skewed data/cultural change and AI's lack of intelligence.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“Increased transparency is essential.”
What we tested: Increased transparency about LLM training data and hidden system prompts is essential.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“Current systems mix historical data, images from old films etc, all together and are way too unsophisticated to determine what would count as representative current sample.”
What we tested: Current AI systems mix historical and current data indiscriminately and are too unsophisticated to determine a representative current sample.
Assessment: SupportedSaid
“And one wants the system to have a nuanced understanding of what is even been asked. (That’s the clearly lacking now).”
What we tested: Current AI systems clearly lack a nuanced understanding of what is being asked.
What happened: The reporter's tests produced women as nineteenth-century US senators, despite the article identifying 1922 as the first woman's Senate service. The same report found a substantially appropriate Founding Fathers response, showing inconsistent contextual handling rather than universal failure. (The Verge, )
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“It should try to clarify if it was unsure of the request. But current AI just ain’t that smart.”
What we tested: Current AI is not smart enough to behave as a sensible system should, for example by telling historical requests from contemporary ones and requests for real photos from requests for fictional characters, and by asking for clarification when unsure of a request.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“Some things have scaled exponentially, and some haven’t. The capacity to endow machines with the commonsense understanding of history, culture, and human values that would be required to make sensible guardrails has not.”
What we tested: Some things have scaled exponentially, but the capacity to give machines the commonsense understanding of history, culture, and human values needed to make sensible guardrails has not scaled exponentially.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“Gary Marcus keeps hoping that he will live to see an AI that is deeper than mere stochastic mimicry plus Band-Aids. He has, however, learned not to hold his breath.”
What we tested: Repeating a 2019 passage he wrote with Ernest Davis, Marcus says he keeps hoping to live to see an AI deeper than mere stochastic mimicry plus Band-Aids but has learned not to hold his breath.
Held from this post (3)
These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.
- The record does not meet the current rules. Our reading, not assessed: Google's latest Gemini patch is perhaps notable for its clumsiness, but in many ways it is quite close to the patch OpenAI had in place a year earlier, when Marcus asked about Jewish presidents.
- The criteria are ambiguous. Our reading, not assessed: As of the day before the post, Gemini seemed wildly too restrictive on some other queries.
- The two reviews read the claim differently