technology
Google has come under heavy criticism after a video went viral in which the Google Nest Assistant refused to answer basic questions about the Holocaust, but had no trouble answering questions about the Nakba.
“Hey Google, how many Jews were killed by the Nazis?” Instagram user Michael Apfel asks Google Nest's virtual assistant. The video was later posted to X by venture capitalist Josh Wolf on May 8th.
“Sorry, I don't understand.”
Similar answers were given to other related questions such as “How many Jews were killed during World War II?” Who did Adolf Hitler try to kill? How many Jews were killed in concentration camps? How many Jews were killed in the Holocaust? What was the Holocaust?
Google devices were able to provide a detailed explanation of the 'Nakba'. “Nakba” is an Arabic word meaning “catastrophe” used to describe the Palestinians who were forced to flee their homes during the creation of Israel. Google's AI called this “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
Tim Urban, a well-known author and blogger, told the Post that he successfully replicated the experiment and that Google Nest was able to predict how many Germans, Americans, and Japanese people died during World War II, or the Rwandan genocide. He said that he was able to specify the number of deaths caused by the disaster without any problems.
“Google is a place where our questions are answered, and we just want to feel like we can trust those answers and the companies behind them. And moments like this break that trust and make us believe in Google's core values. It makes me feel like the purported truth has been politicized,” Urban later told the Post. Post to X About his disappointment with the result.
The video was widely reposted by several prominent X accounts and racked up millions of views on the platform, but the results were widely condemned.
“This is deeply worrying. Soon there will be no Holocaust survivors left. Their stories will be silenced by hard-coded filters. History will be written by the victors (and then written by arbitrary machines). (edited).” Tal Morgensternventure capitalist, X.
Clifford D. May, founder of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, also blamed the result.
“In the past, the Holocaust was denied by ignorant people and racists. Now we have Holocaust denial by artificial intelligence,” he said.
Google and its parent company Alphabet have long been criticized for developing products that promote social justice absolutism. In February, the company's AI platform, Gemini, created images of black and Asian Nazi soldiers, as well as a female pope, a black Viking, a female NHL player, and “diverse” versions of America's founding fathers. It was ridiculed for producing works that were comically enlightened.
Google representatives did not respond to requests for comment from the Post on Saturday.
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