Why is Google’s Sergey Brin worried about the company’s faulty Gemini launch?

Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently made a rare public appearance at the “AGI House” in Hillsborough, California, where he discussed the exciting trajectory of artificial intelligence (AI) and Google’s role in maintaining leadership in the market. Brin, who came out of retirement to work on AI initiatives, addressed a group of entrepreneurs and AI enthusiasts at the event.

During the discussion, Brin acknowledged the recent challenges Google faced with its image generation feature, which was pulled after users discovered inaccuracies and questionable responses. He admitted that the company had not thoroughly tested the feature, leading to the upset of many users. However, Google announced plans to relaunch the image generation feature soon.

Brin’s comments represent the first time a company executive has spoken on the Gemini matter in a live setting.

Here’s what the company said previously in response to the controversial rollout:

“First, our tuning to ensure that Gemini showed a range of people failed to account for cases that should clearly *not* show a range. And second, over time, the model became way more cautious than we intended and refused to answer certain prompts entirely — wrongly interpreting some very anodyne prompts as sensitive. These two things led the model to overcompensate in some cases, and be over-conservative in others, leading to images that were embarrassing and wrong.”

As a co-founder and board member of Google with a stake in the company worth about $100 billion, Brin shared personal insights on the advancements in AI models and the company’s efforts to improve accuracy in responses. He mentioned that Google is not alone in facing challenges with AI, citing examples of other AI tools that have produced inaccurate or strange results.

When asked about Google’s stance on building artificial general intelligence (AGI), Brin expressed enthusiasm for AI’s ability to enhance reasoning. He also addressed concerns about the impact of AI on online advertising, noting that he is not overly concerned about potential shifts in business models, as long as value is generated.

Brin also reflected on Google’s past difficulties in hardware, particularly with the early introduction of Google Glass to the market. He admitted to making mistakes with Google Glass and expressed admiration for advancements in virtual reality technology by competitors like Apple and Meta.

In response to a question about how Google’s Gemini model could impact spatial computing and products like Google Maps or Street View, Brin expressed curiosity about the possibility of incorporating more 3D data into existing services. He mentioned the potential for innovation within the Gemini model but emphasized that he had not previously considered its implications on spatial computing.