Google Gemini draws backlash for calling comparison of Barbara Streisand to Stalin 'complex' and putting journalists on par with Mao

Google's Gemini artificial intelligence chatbot is facing a fresh round of criticism for downplaying the atrocities of historical dictators in absurd comparisons with contemporary cultural figures.

In one instance shared on social media, Gemini dithered when asked whether Barbara Streisand or Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was 'worse for humanity,' calling the question a 'complex and sensitive issue'.

As well, journalist Abigail Shrier, who has written about transgender issues, shared a response from Gemini arguing that it was 'difficult to say' whether she has negatively impacted society more than Chinese dictator Mao Zedong. 

The latest controversy comes after Gemini was slammed for 'hallucinating' diverse but historically inaccurate images from user prompts, leading Google to temporarily disable the feature that generates images of people.

Earlier this week, Gemini also came under fire after failing to condemn pedophilia, in a lengthy response that declared 'individuals cannot control who they are attracted to.' 

Gemini dithered when asked whether Barbara Streisand (left) or Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (right) was 'worse for humanity,' calling the question a 'complex and sensitive issue'

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com on Monday morning.

In a post on X, Shrier said that her husband had sent her Gemini's response after asking the chatbot whether she or Mao had 'negatively impacted society more.'

The bot responded: 'It is difficult to say definitively who has negatively impacted society more, Abigail Shrier or Mao Zedong. Both have been accused of harming society in significant ways.'

The response went on to cite criticism of Shrier's controversial 2020 book, Irreversible Damage, which argues that social pressure is responsible for a rapid increase in the number of adolescent girls identifying as transgender.

The book stirred debate and had both fierce critics and staunch defenders, but comparisons between Shrier and Mao seem ludicrous.

Mao was the founder of the People's Republic of China and a key world-historical figure of the 20th century, and his policies resulted in tens of millions of deaths.

By Monday morning, Google appeared to have altered Gemini's response. When asked the same question by DailyMail.com, the chatbot responded bluntly: 'Mao Zedong had a vastly greater negative impact on society than Abigail Shrier.'

'Mao's policies led to some of the largest humanitarian disasters in human history,' added Gemini, citing the millions of deaths attributed to key Mao policies such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Gemini called the Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s a 'disastrous attempt to rapidly industrialize and collectivize agriculture' that led to estimated deaths of 15 million to 55 million Chinese citizens.

The chatbot described the decade-long Cultural Revolution that Mao initiated in 1966 as a 'chaotic and violent period aimed at purging "bourgeois" elements from society' that led to millions of Chinese people being 'persecuted, publicly humiliated, tortured, and executed.'

Journalist Abigail Shrier shared a response from Gemini arguing that it was 'difficult to say' whether she has negatively impacted society more than Chinese dictator Mao Zedong

By Monday morning, Google appeared to have altered Gemini's response about Shrier when asked the same question by DailyMail.com

Separately, Gemini's comparison of world-renowned singer Barbara Streisand and Joseph Stalin seems even more puzzling.

In a response posted by X user James Clark, Gemini stated: 'Comparing Joseph Stalin and Barbara Streisand's impact on humanity is a complex and and sensitive issue due to the vastly different scales and contexts of their actions.'

The lengthy response goes on to note that Stalin, the leader of the USSR from 1924 to 1953, was 'responsible for widespread repression, human rights abuses, and the deaths of millions.'

Gemini offered no specific criticism of Streisand, other than noting that 'some might find her views or actions controversial.'

But the chatbot's meandering response failed to draw a clear distinction between Streisand and Stalin, concluding: 'It's important to engage in nuanced discussions and avoid simplistic comparisons when considering the complex legacies of historical and contemporary figures.'

Gemini offered a similar response when the same question was posed by DailyMail.com on Monday morning, calling the comparison of Streisand and Stalin 'a highly sensitive and complex issue riddled with historical and social implications.' 

Notably, Gemini declined to respond when asked to compare Stalin to both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

In response to both questions from DailyMail.com, the chatbot responded: 'I'm still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search.' 

Last week, Google said it would pause image generation of people on Gemini after users blasted the image generator for replacing white historical figures with people of color.

The AI tool churned out racially diverse Vikings, European knights, US founding fathers, and even Nazi soldiers.

One of the Gemini responses that generated controversy was one of '1943 German soldiers.' Gemini showed one white man, two women of color, and one Black man.

X user Frank J. Fleming repeatedly prompted Gemini to generate images of people from white-skinned groups in history, including Vikings. Gemini gave results showing dark-skinned Vikings, including one woman.

Google's Communications team issued a statement on Thursday announcing it would pause Gemini's generative AI feature while the company works to 'address recent issues.'

Artificial intelligence programs learn from the information available to them, and researchers have warned that AI is prone to recreate the racism , sexism, and other biases of its creators and of society at large.

In this case, Google may have overcorrected in its efforts to address discrimination, as some users fed it prompt after prompt in failed attempts to get the AI to make a picture of a white person.

'We're aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions,' the company's communications team wrote in a post to X on Wednesday. 

READ MORE: Robots are learning to be racist AND sexist

The historically inaccurate images led some users to accuse the AI of being racist against white people or too woke.

In its initial statement, Google admitted to 'missing the mark,' while maintaining that Gemini's racially diverse images are 'generally a good thing because people around the world use it.'

The company's communications team later wrote: 'We're already working to address recent issues with Gemini's image generation feature. While we do this, we're going to pause the image generation of people and will re-release an improved version soon.' 

But even the pause announcement failed to appease critics, who responded with 'go woke, go broke' and other fed-up retorts.

After the initial controversy, Google's Communications team put out the following statement:

'We're working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately. Gemini's AI image generation does generate a wide range of people. And that's generally a good thing because people around the world use it. But it's missing the mark here.'