Yesterday evening, @Google CEO @SundarPichai addressed the botched launch of the company’s @Gemini #chatbot in an email to employees. This was a message intended to boost internal morale and plot a course forward, but also a message to the public at large.
The email mainly consisted of finely polished corporate talk, being rather vague on what Google would now do. That is to be expected, if disappointing: You don’t want to give your critics more information than you must or reduce your options by being too specific.
But let’s see what we can divine from Pichai’s message: What steps did he announce? And will they be enough to weather the current crisis and make Google future-proof?
- Pichai conceded the chatbot producing biased results. That’s an important piece of information, considering that Gemini’s product lead had found nothing wrong with Gemini’s answers when the first criticisms were raised. But Pichai stopped short of an actual apology. A “we’re sorry!” would have been important to stem the bleeding of the public’s and the industry’s trust in Google.
- He stated that Google is working on fixing the bias problems in Gemini as quickly as possible, “working around the clock”. So, we will see a new release in a few weeks (more likely months). The question is: How deep is the problem of political bias at Google and is it even possible to fix it in the short run?
- He said the company would “review what happened” and “fix it at scale”. This implicitly concedes there are structural problems at Google that led to the Gemini fiasco, and that they cannot be fixed with an intervention at the product team level.
- He rattled down a list of items Google is looking at to improve things, “including robust evals and red-teaming”. Which raises the question: Why were there no “robust evals and red-teaming” in the first place? I suspect there was actually loads of testing and reviews pre-launch, but nobody found anything wrong with the results. So how then will testing be changed to be brought back up to snuff exactly?
- No details were given on structural changes or transfers and layoffs. However, I suspect short of replacing the Gemini team with a new one, plus bringing in new leadership, “fixing” Gemini will fail. A review of the chain of command and how it contributed to the failed launch is also necessary.
Pichai better get this right. The first voices are calling for his resignation. I fear that the current leadership might attempt to muddle through the crisis rather than address the fundamental issues that have caused Gemini’s attitude problem.
The market seemed to feel the same way. Alphabet’s stock was down another almost 2% today, bringing the total stock price loss post Gemini launch to more than 5% or a nearly $100 billion market cap loss. This could indicate the market’s disappointment in Pichai’s email. (Though keep in mind Google was also sued by European publishers today for $2.3 billion, which may have contributed to another blood loss.)
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