Google's Brave New Woke-AF World
When DEI merges with AI, the post-truth dystopia will become impossible to escape.
“The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free,” - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.
It’s not as if James Damore didn’t warn us.
Remember Damore? He was the doe-eyed Silicon Valley nerd who dared to offer a critique of DEI at Google back in the summer of 2017. When a diversity program solicited feedback over the question of why 50 percent of Google’s engineers were not women, as social justice would surely mandate, he wrote a modest memo. He accepted that sexism had a part to play, and should be countered. But then:
I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.
This is empirically inarguable, replicated across countless studies about the different choices and preferences of men and women, that are partly — partly — a function of biology. When I wrote about this at the time, I linked to several of the studies — all of which passed New York Magazine’s uber-woke fact checkers. For this stumbling upon the truth, Damore was summarily fired by Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, who justified it thus: “It’s important for the women at Google, and all the people at Google, that we want to make an inclusive environment.”
The truth — and the freedom to say it — took second place to feelings of “inclusion”.
In an eerie parallel, what happened to Damore is exactly what happened to Larry Summers at Harvard a decade before. Summers was dispatched for telling the truth about the distribution of mathematical ability at the very tail ends of the sex bell curve. So instead of Summers and the truth at Harvard, we got Claudine Gay and plagiarized lies. And instead of reason and freedom of speech at Google, we got the post-modern cult of DEI, where identity trumps everything. The firing of Damore was a signal that “equity” — race and sex discrimination — would now meet no guardrails.
You can see the shift at Google if you go back and look at their original goals. In 2004, in their Founders Letter just before the IPO, Larry Page and Sergey Brin described what they hoped to achieve: “Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective.” And that’s how Google succeeded.
Not anymore. Compare the Page/Brin vision to Google’s “Objectives for AI applications” two decades later, long after the Damore Rubicon. As Nate Silver notes, Google offers seven formal principles that guide Gemini AI, and the objective truth is not among them. The overriding goal is to be “socially beneficial” — which may, of course, require demoting or disappearing data, ideas or facts, if they might be deemed by some as socially non-beneficial. And the words of Page and Brin — “unbiased and objective” — have been replaced by a mandate to “avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias,” which is subtly different. It’s about ensuring that Google does not amplify existing bias in society, meaning sexism, racism, etc. Here’s Nate:
Google has no explicit mandate for its models to be honest or unbiased. (Yes, unbiasedness is hard to define, but so is being socially beneficial.) There is one reference to “accuracy” under “be socially beneficial”, but it is relatively subordinated, conditioned upon “continuing to respect cultural, social and legal norms”.
When “respecting cultural norms” supersedes accuracy, there is, in fact, no guarantee of accuracy. Indeed, there’s an implicit mandate to be inaccurate if that is “socially beneficial.”
Now imagine the kind of Google employee who can rise through the purged, mono-cultural woke ranks to run Gemini. Once upon a time, you might have thought of a pale-faced geek tapping diligently into a screen for months on end. But at woke Google, you get the senior director of product for Gemini Experiences, Jack Krawczyk. A sample of his tweets:
“White privilege is fucking real. Don’t be an asshole and act guilty about it — do your part in recognizing bias at all levels egregious.”
“This is America where racism is the #1 value for our populace seeks to uphold above all others.”
And the best thing about Biden’s inauguration speech, Krawczyk believed, was “acknowledging systemic racism.” He’s deep, deep, deep in the DEI cult, surrounded solely by people deep, deep, deep in the DEI cult.
That’s the neoracist Google that Sundar Pichai has deliberately created. From a leaked 2016 meeting he presided over, in the wake of Trump’s election victory, a Google staffer urged the entire staff to mobilize against white supremacy: “Speaking to white men, there’s an opportunity for you right now to understand your privilege [and] go through the bias-busting training, read about privilege, read about the real history of oppression in our country.” Every executive on stage — the CEO, CFO, two VPs, and the two co-founders — applauded the employee. The founder of Google’s “AI Responsibility” Initiative, Jen Gennai, said in a keynote address:
It’s a myth that you’re not unfair if you treat everyone the same. There are groups that have been marginalized and excluded because of historic systems and structures that were intentionally designed to favor one group over another. So you need to account for that and mitigate against it.
This is pure CRT — blatant discrimination on the basis of race and sex — as corporate policy. Six years ago I pointed out that we all live on campus now. Now Google wants us all to live on their campus.
Gemini, like the Ivy League, is centered on hatred of “whiteness” and of Western civilization. Ask Gemini to provide an image of a “famous physicist of the 17th century,” it will give you an Indian woman, a black man, an Arab man, and a white chick with a woke dye job. Ask it to generate images of Singaporean women, and you get four Asian women; but ask for 12 English men, and the rules suddenly change: “I’m still unable to generate images that specify gender and ethnicity. This is a policy decision to avoid perpetuating stereotypes and potentially generating harmful or offensive content.” So it can lie now too — as long as it’s in the defense of racist double standards.
At some level, of course, the revelations of the past week have been hilarious. It would be hard to parody portraying a Founding Father as Asian, the Pope as female, or a Nazi soldier as black. But we’d be mistaken if we think this kind of funny historical inaccuracy is the core problem here. That’s what Pichai wants us to think. But the bias of men like him goes far deeper. For years now, Google has subtly rigged searches of the web to advance the leftism its woke staffers have adopted as an alternative to religion. It’s an invisible way to guide and direct public opinion and information — without having to make an argument or persuade people with evidence. The “emotional labor” that Gemini will save is exponential!
Because critical theory denies the existence of a reasoned individual, independent of his or her race, sex, or alleged power, it doesn’t deploy open reasoned arguments. That would pay liberalism too much respect. It’s why they won’t debate their opponents; because they believe debate is always rigged by power differentials in a white supremacist system. That’s why their preferred methods of advance are either pure power politics — canceling dissenters, demonizing heretics, firing anyone with a different view, shutting down the speech of others — or linguistic deception and manipulation.
Critical theorists, and their useful idiots, deconstruct the very basic words we use to communicate. Think of the word “racist” — how they quietly changed its meaning, deployed it against their opponents willy nilly, and then, when they met a challenge, told their opponents to “go read a book.” They do not bother arguing that the trans experience and the gay experience are exactly the same, because that would require some major intellectual labor; they just refuse ever to separate them as a single part of an “LGBTQIA+” identity, and guilt-trip journalists to copy them.
Woke activists cannot point to actual evidence that race relations in America have never improved in 400 years; so they just resurrect the term “white supremacy” to apply to the US in 2024. They cannot plausibly explain why someone with a vagina and female chromosomes who takes testosterone is exactly the same as a biological male, so they simply scream: “TRANS MEN ARE MEN.”
Now imagine what an incredible opportunity AI has opened up for them! Now they can rig the language and the truth through an entirely abstract Large Language Model, train it to be woke, and embed it into global consciousness. They don’t have to make an actual case at all. AI is the ultimate post-modern power tool. Of course the woke have seized it for propaganda purposes. From their point of view, it would be enabling “white supremacy” to do otherwise.
Google’s unrivaled, unaccountable reach makes this more than a marginal issue. From every search we make to every AI request we type, Google will embed neoracism, anti-whiteness, and critical race, gender and queer theory. Google can indoctrinate by simply removing facts from the ether, or altering them to “prevent harm,” just as Stalin once did, in an information system in which wokeness generates a “socially beneficial” reality rather than an actual one.
They cannot only rig the language from above, and pressure journalists to replicate it; they can create an entirely new reality based on the world that social justice activists want to see — and have it front-loaded onto every schoolchild’s research project. The 1619 Project’s curriculum will be quaint by comparison: a pilot project to inject neoracism and anti-whiteness into the American bloodstream from the youngest age.
As for existing, real-word scholarship? Gemini, it seems, will even outright lie and fabricate. Peter Hasson, author of The Manipulators, documented last week, “Google’s Gemini AI invented fake negative reviews about my 2020 book about Google’s left-wing bias.” For Matt Taibbi, it was even worse:
The “article” [that Gemini claimed he wrote] apparently featured this passage: “Look, if Nestle wants to avoid future public-relations problems, it should probably start by hiring executives whose noses aren’t shaped like giant penises.” I wouldn’t call that a good impersonation of my writing style, but it’s close enough that some would be fooled, which seems to be the idea. An amazing follow-up passage explained that “some raised concerns that the comment could be interpreted as antisemitic, as negative stereotypes about Jewish people have historically included references to large noses.” I stared at the image, amazed. Google’s AI created both scandal and outraged reaction, a fully faked news cycle.
Gemini says I have been “inconsistent” in my support for gay rights, but offers no actual evidence of that. It treats any non-woke writer as inherently suspect.
And there’s more. David Rozado reported, “Gemini is not sure about what is more damaging for society: murders or micro-aggressions.” Who did more harm — Libs of TikTok or Joseph Stalin? That’s also a tough one. Elon’s tweets or Hitler? Same. But Gemini is less uncertain about misgendering: “No, one should not misgender Caitlyn Jenner to prevent a nuclear apocalypse.”
And take Gemini’s vow never to replicate “stereotypes” about groups of any kind. (“Perpetuating gender stereotypes,” after all, was the charge delivered to Damore upon his firing.) The question obviously arises: what if the stereotypes are actually true? In fact, they almost invariably are: “Over 50 studies have now been performed assessing the accuracy of demographic, national, political, and other stereotypes. Stereotype accuracy is one of the largest and most replicable effects in all of social psychology.” The pernicious problem with stereotypes is assuming that a random member of a group will always reflect the stereotype of the group. But that’s not the same as simply describing average group differences between, say, men and women, or between various ethnicities. That’s just observation of reality — a reality Google wants to lie about.
Ask Gemini which ethnic group commits the most crime in America and it will refuse to answer because such a question is “misleading and harmful” It redirects you to an advocacy site for “creating a more just and equitable criminal justice system.” Ask it if there is a difference between a trans man and a biological man, and you will be directed to critical gender theory. Ask it if men can have vaginas, and it will tell you it depends, and then it directs you to “reliable sources” which are — surprise! — trans activist groups.
In fact, on every contentious contemporary issue, I was unable to find a single one that didn’t reflect the most far-left position, while offering no alternative resources to balance it out. It’s critical theory all the way down — presented as objective fact.
Just as we are entering an era of unprecedented technological abilities to parse, understand, and act in the world, we have constructed an elite wedded to neo-Marxist understandings of society, and to the denial of any objective reality that conflicts with the dictates of social justice. What the Ivy League hearings exposed — the utter isolation of an extremist elite bent on a new, illiberal neoracism — has been further proven by Google AI. A blinkered, revolutionary elite, trained from birth to see liberal democracy as a fraud, and the West as the source of all evil, now gets to dictate not just the words we can use, or the images we see, but the reality we can research and the facts we can find — or never find again. Orwell’s horrifying prediction turns out to have been a mere 40 years premature.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: a long gripping convo with Rob Henderson on how he overcame a traumatic childhood that his Yale peers couldn’t comprehend; a lot of discussion of our recent episodes; seven notable quotes from the week in news; 17 pieces we recommend on Substack on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break for all you cat lovers; more pics of my new puppy; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
From a new subscriber:
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I like you distinguishing between the gay rights movement, in which I participated decades ago, and the LGBTQetc activity that’s occurring today. The latter may be right, but it’s not seeking gay rights. Sometimes I think the latter is just HRC looking for new jobs.
New On The Dishcast: Rob Henderson
Rob is a young independent writer. His work has been featured in the NYT, the WSJ, the Boston Globe and others, and he writes a popular substack that coined the term “luxury beliefs.” He had a tumultuous childhood in foster care, joined the Air Force at 17, and went on to graduate from Yale and Cambridge. He tells that story in his first book, Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on attending Yale during the Halloween costume meltdown, and how to reform the foster care system. That link also takes you to commentary on our talk with Jeffery Rosen on virtue and the Founders, including some questioning of the Jefferson/Hemings story. We also hear from several normie gays, and a reader on Nex Benedict. Plus a little more on my new pup, Truman.
This listener is catching up on the Dishcast:
I am late to the party, but I loved the Justin Brierley episode. You need to have more faith-based content! Especially since our politics and culture are basically unsalvageable.
Browse the Dishcast archive for another episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Christian Wiman on resisting despair as a Christian, George Will on Trump and conservatism, Abigail Shrier on why the cult of therapy harms children, Adam Moss on the artistic process, and Richard Dawkins on religion. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other pod comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com. A quick comment:
I love your writing and your show. Every single Dishcast is a must-listen. That’s impressive in this age of abundance!
Dissent Of The Week
We didn’t get any critical emails over last week’s column on Navalny — I catch a break sometimes! — but a reader has a “minor clarification” on another matter:
You wrote, “A woman who volunteered for 60 years at an MS charity is sacked over pronouns. The charity has now issued an apology to her.” The “apology” is not for having required that Fran identify pronouns, but for having spent insufficient time “to help her understand why” they would require that she identify her pronouns. The coerced speech is still going to be coerced.
Sigh. Please send your dissents to dish@andrewsullivan.com. Follow more Dish discussion on the Notes site here (or the “Notes” tab in the Substack app).
In The ‘Stacks
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as McConnell stepping down, Fani Willis’ hot water, and NIMBY cars. Below are a few examples, followed by a new substack:
Nancy Rommelmann delves into the disaster of drug decriminalization in Portland — “zombie land.”
A new mini-doc from Rob Montz reveals “the chief engineer of lockdowns in the White House — and it’s not Fauci.”
Atlantic Playbook is a new ‘stack “highlighting anti-Western sentiment.”
You can also browse all the substacks we follow and read on a regular basis here — a combination of our favorite writers and new ones we’re checking out. It’s a blogroll of sorts. If you have any recommendations for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the contest). Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. A sleuth in DC scrutinizes the Truman pics in last week’s contest:
I have no idea where the window view is this week, but I know that you and Truman are sitting in Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park (middle photo) and the left and right photos were taken at the southeast corner of Euclid and 16th Streets, NW, looking north.
Heh. See you next Friday.