Google employees worked for 120 hours per week to solve Gemini AI's flaws: Report

Google employees worked for 120 hours per week to solve Gemini AI’s flaws: Report

In a recent all-hands meeting at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, Prabhakar Raghavan, the search boss at Google, shared important information with employees. Amidst the sports metaphors and rallying cries, one fact stood out: the teams working on Gemini, Google’s main group of AI models, had stepped up from working 100 hours a week to 120 hours to correct Google’s image recognition tool, according to a report by CNBC. The image generation tool was creating inaccurate historical images that sometimes replaced White people with images of Black, Native American and Asian people.

This team’s effort helped Google fix roughly 80 per cent of the issues in just 10 days. Raghavan praised the teams for their dedication and commitment, stating that this wasn’t a case of someone “slacking off and dropping the ball” but rather a testament to the company’s ability to move quickly on important matters.

The Gemini project is a part of Google’s broader efforts to stay ahead in the AI arms race as more users move away from traditional internet search to find information online. However, the journey hasn’t been without its challenges. After users discovered inaccuracies in Google’s AI image generator that went viral online, the company pulled the feature in February.

Raghavan highlighted an effort in 2023, when the Bard team (now Gemini) and Magi team, which focuses on AI-powered search, launched products within a matter of months. He suggested that this was something the company couldn’t have accomplished with bigger numbers, indicating that the company would be paying close attention to the size and scope of teams.

Raghavan noted that the company is navigating a regulatory environment unlike anything it’s seen before. He cited the European Union’s Digital Markets Act and said the company is still learning what its obligations will be from the European Commission.

Raghavan also urged employees to “meet this moment” and “act with urgency based on market conditions”. He acknowledged that it won’t be easy, but added, “these are the moments and the history of industries that will define us”.

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