Google to pause Gemini AI model's image generation of people due to inaccuracies

Feb 22 (Reuters) - Google is pausing its AI tool that creates images of people following inaccuracies in some historical depictions generated by the model, the latest hiccup in the Alphabet-owned (GOOGL.O), opens new tab company's efforts to catch up with rivals OpenAI and Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab.

Google started offering image generation through its Gemini AI models earlier this month, but over the past few days some users on social media had flagged that the model returns historical images which are sometimes inaccurate.

"We're aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions," Google had said on Wednesday.

Since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in November 2022, Google has been racing to produce AI software rivaling what the Microsoft-backed company had introduced.

When Google released its generative AI chatbot Bard a year ago, the company had shared inaccurate information about pictures of a planet outside the Earth's solar system in a promotional video, causing shares to slide as much as 9%.

Bard was rechristened as Gemini earlier this month and Google rolled out paid subscription plans, which users could choose for better reasoning capabilities from the AI model.

"Historical contexts have more nuance to them and we will further tune to accommodate that," said, opens new tab Jack Krawczyk, Senior Director of Product for Gemini at Google, on Wednesday.