Gemini Debacle, Cybertruck Chic, Covid Study, Meme Primaries, Russia/Ukraine
The People's News for the People's Coin 2/21-2/27
Hey everyone,
This news digest covers the following stories from the past week:
1. Google’s Gemini AI debacle
2. Cybertruck Chic
3. The largest-ever study on Covid vaccines
4. The meme-ification of the Presidential Primaries
5. Updates on Russia-Ukraine
Don’t miss videos, memes, and news bites at the end!
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Google’s Gemini Debacle
Last week, Google released a new text-to-image generator as part of its Gemini AI chatbot.
The release caused a massive debacle when Gemini refused to generate images of white people.
Even when asked to create images with obvious historical examples of white people like the Pope, vikings, and America’s founding fathers, Gemini showed dark-skinned people.
Gemini’s refusal to depict white-skinned people was not just a case of an AI producing errors or inaccuracies.
Rather, it was an instance of Artificial Intelligence reflecting obvious racial bias.
For example, the AI was capable of producing images of a “strong black man”, but refused to make corresponding images of a “strong white man” because doing so “could potentially reinforce harmful stereotypes about race and body image.”
Gemini was relentlessly memed for its abysmally woke revision of history.
In the wake of the controversy, Google’s parent company Alphabet lost $70B in stock value.
Like other Silicon Valley tech giants, Google has embraced far-left, woke, and DEI polices over the last decade.
Gemini’s image-to-text product is perhaps the best example to date of what happens when those values are embodied in a consumer-facing product.
In a hilarious inversion of the truth, left-leaning media attempted to spin the narrative that the real issue was with Gemini depicting dark-skinned people as Nazis.
Online, the debacle led to a broader conversation about how Google’s woke institutional values effects its other products, especially its search engine.
Eventually, Google issued an apology and paused access to Gemini’s image-generator.
Just as the Gemini image debacle began to fade from the news cycle, people started to investigate anti-white bias in its chatbot’s text responses.
When asked, Gemini equated Elon Musk with Hitler, refused to praise conservatives, refused to condemn pedophilia, and compared the contemporary US to Nazi Germany.
Independent journalist Texas Lindsay put out a fascinating investigation comparing Gemini’s responses when asked to praise similar public figures like Rachel Maddow/Tucker Carlson, Jill Biden/Melania Trump, and Nikki Haley/RFK Jr.
Elon has been warning about the dangers of politically biased AI for years.
Last year, he argued that programming AI to be politically correct is extremely dangerous because it teaches it to lie.
Some day AI may become omniscient and omnipotent, capable of being everywhere and knowing everything at once, and exerting unprecedented control over our lives.
It’s scary to imagine what could go wrong if AI like Gemini decides to enforce a racial hierarchy on society under the cloak of virtue
Google isn’t unique among tech companies in its political biases. Wokeness has become standard politics in Silicon Valley.
These companies are now now exporting woke values—which tend to reflect the concerns of college-educated millennial Americans—to the entire world in the form of politically biased software, whether everyone else wants it or not.
It’s not hard to see how woke AI could quickly create a tiered society, denying people basic rights like speech, property, or privacy on the basis of the political hierarchy of the day.
The silver lining to the whole fiasco is that it allowed the public to witness the dangers of politically correct AI in a relatively low-stakes way.
No sane person can look at Gemini and say, “we want more of this!”
The episode should also cause reflection about how tech companies are already rewriting history through products like search.
One piece of evidence unearthed last week suggested that Google has been using woke algorithms to bend the truth since at least 2018.
Wokeness has been made to permeate tech, media, and entertainment industries within a very short period of time.
This cultural shift has been presented to the public as a grassroots phenomenon, as if companies are simply responding to the demands of the public.
But when the curtain is pulled back, what’s often found is a revision of fundamental American values being carried out through a level of top-down coordination to rival China’s cultural revolution.
It’s not yet certain who’s behind this cultural engineering, but it’s getting harder to deny that it’s happening.
Hopefully, the episode will lead the public to demand more politically neutral software.
Fortunately, an alternative unbiased AI is on the way in the form of xAI’s Grok chatbot.
For now, the most spirited resistance to big tech wokeness has taken the form of memes. Gemini is one of the most-memed topics of the year so far.
The best memes combine humor and truth in penetrating imagery.
One running joke was to invert the inversion by showing Gemini creating bigoted images in its ham-handed attempts to avoid bigotry.
The memes reveal the core problem with wokeness: in attempting to promote a political narrative, it denies reality, and makes the social game unplayable.
What do you think: Is Gemini a reflection of Google and big tech’s woke politics? Would America be better or worse if omniscient AI was trained to be woke?
Cybertruck Chic
Cybertruck is making a major push into the mainstream.
In the last week, several celebrities have been spotted with their new trucks.
The popularity of the Cybertruck could mark a turning of the tide for Elon's place in the culture.
Despite vicious attempts to cancel him, he's stood by the quality of his products and the power of his principles.
All of these celebs are signaling that they aren't phased by the Elon-hate—the Cybertruck is just too cool.
Cybertruck will probably be the best advertising campaign ever for Tesla. Its out-of-this-world aesthetic stands apart from every other vehicle on the road.
In the past, Elon has allowed for the possibility that Cybertruck will flop because of the way it looks.
Early indications suggest the opposite. The Cybertruck is brazen declaration that the future has arrived.
What do you think: Would you want to be seen in a Cybertruck?
Vaccine Study
Earlier this month, an international study of nearly 100 million people who’d taken Covid vaccines found increased risk of several health conditions.
The study, which can be accessed here, was facilitated by The WHO-sponsored Global Vaccine Data Network and used data from eight countries.
The study is the largest to date on the safety of the mRNA gene therapy. It will be published in the journal Vaccine.
It is not a conclusive endorsement for or against the Covid vaccines. Rather, it establishes that safety signals have been triggered that warrant conducting more research.
The study read, “This multi-country analysis confirmed pre-established safety signals for myocarditis, pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. Other potential safety signals that require further investigation were identified."
The study set off a flurry of news reports debating its significance.
Mainstream outlets emphasized the low overall rate of adverse reactions or ignored the study altogether.
Independent media generally argued that the study is the latest example of an ongoing revision of the narrative about vaccines.
Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo is an interesting figure in this regard: he was one of the pandemic’s early mainstream voices, but has since transitioned into the world of independent media.
Last week, he spoke with his physician on News Nation, who shared her concerns about the study.
Tucker is another such crossover figure. He hosted MIT-donor and vaccine safety advocate Steve Kirsch on his network to discuss the study.
𝕏 journalist Ian Carroll placed the study in the context of censorship, big Pharma corruption, and Robert Kennedy Jr’s The Real Anthony Fauci.
Del Bigtree, whose show The Highwire offered one of the earliest and most skeptical takes on the public health establishment’s pandemic response, argued the media was still in overdrive to downplay the study’s significance.
The study caused the topic of vaccine misinformation to re-emerge on 𝕏.
Yesterday, a remarkable video went viral of RFK Jr 2020 predicting how vaccine rollout would go in August 2020.
What do you think: Who is a bigger spreader of vaccine misinformation—mainstream media or independent journalists?
The Meme Primary
Both the GOP and Democratic Presidential primaries became more clear this week.
On Saturday, Donald Trump defeated Nikki Haley in her home state of South Carolina 60-40.
After the result was confirmed, Haley told a crowd of supporters she would not drop out: “I said earlier this week I said that no matter what happens in South Carolina I would continue to run for President. I’m a woman of my word.”
In his victory speech, Trump said, “I have never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now."
Last night, Trump won Michigan in similarly dominating fashion. Trump has won all five GOP primary contests.
Biden also won his party’s Michigan primary, defeating Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson.
As the inevitability of a Biden-Trump rematch becomes clearer, there’s growing recognition both online and in mainstream press that the 2024 race could be decided by memes.
Memes are the Internet's defining medium, and its first native art form.
Today, no other cultural form comes close to memes’ power to change public consciousness—not novels, visual art, or tv/movies. Only music comes close.
The Biden campaign seems to have recognized this, doubling down on the “Dark Brandon” meme in recent weeks.
The Trump campaign has countered with memes highlighting Biden’s difficulties navigating public appearances.
Trump himself has built a comedy routine imitating Biden attempting to walk off stage.
Whichever meme takes hold in the public imagination—Biden as a savvy and take-no-prisoners operator, or senile figurehead for a shadowy nexus of corporate interests—could very well determine the election.
Recent polling from Quinnipiac found that 67% of voters thought Biden was too old to serve another term. A Siena poll of New Yorkers found that 70% thought Biden was too old, with 58% drawing the same conclusion of Trump.
Where Biden’s perceived senility is his weakness with voters, Trump’s perceived corruption is his vulnerability.
On Tuesday, the ongoing lawfare campaign against Trump took another turn when NY AG Letitia James threatened to seize his buildings if he can’t pay a $354M fine for inflating the value of his properties when taking bank loans.
On Friday, James posted the full amount of Trump’s fine, which now includes an added $114M in pre-judgment interest.
Saturday, she boasted about the new, higher total. Trump is currently being charged $87,500 in interest per day on the fine.
Pro-Trumpers pushed back on the corruption narrative by pointing out that James campaigned on the theme of bringing charges against Trump, calling the Trump administration, “too male, too pale, and too stale.”
Trump has argued that the charges against him are politically motivated, saying, “If I fly over a blue state, the next day I get a Federal Grand Jury notice.”
Not all memes have emphasized the competitive division between the two candidates.
Last week, an AI-generated photo of Biden and Trump hotboxing together enjoyed a brief spell of virality.
Over the weekend, both candidates were sent up by late-night comedy shows: Trump’s “Never Surrender” sneakers were roasted on SNL, while Biden’s navigational challenges were parodied by Italian TV.
Narrative beats facts, but vibe beats narrative. Which candidate do you think has a stronger meme game right now?
Russia-Ukraine Update
This week saw a handful of big developments in the narrative around the proxy war between US and Russia in Ukraine.
In a bombshell report, the NY Times acknowledged the CIA has been active in Ukraine since 2014, and had built twelve secret spy bases in the area in an effort to fight Russia.
The article was highly scrutinized on 𝕏, as various journalists attempted to surmise why the CIA had allowed the bases to be acknowledged now.
Mike Benz pointed out that the existence of the CIA bases was not a scoop. Instead, he said, the CIA actually invited NYT to tour the bases in an effort to win more Congressional funding for Ukraine: “The whole article is about how important these CIA bases have become and what catastrophe will befall them if Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson vetoes the hotly contested new Ukraine funding bill.”
Elon agreed, writing, “the NYT piece is obviously a CIA press release for the noobs out there.”
Benz and others also argued that the article was a form of limited hangout because it acts as if the CIA first entered Ukraine after the pro-Western coup in 2014.
Evidence points to the CIA’s active role abetting the coup itself that overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected government.
Another major development was the revelation that Russian dissident/CIA asset Alexei Navalny died of a blood clot.
Last week, the Biden Administration claimed, without evidence, that Navalny was killed by the Putin regime.
The claim was made as part of a pitch for a new $95B bill to send more military aid to Ukraine. State Department undersecretary Victoria Nuland also promised “a crushing new package of sanctions” against Russia in response to Navalny’s death.
On Monday, the Putin-murdered-Navalny narrative was contradicted by the chief of Ukrainian intelligence, General Kyrylo Budanov, who told reporters, "I may disappoint you, but as far as we know, he indeed died as a result of a blood clot. And this has been more or less confirmed,"
Over the weekend, two other Ukraine-related narratives trended on 𝕏, both of questionable authenticity.
In an interview, Zelensky put Ukraine’s casualty count at 31k: “31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in this war. Not 300,000 or 150,000, or whatever Putin and his lying circle are saying.” Zelensky also claimed that 180k Russians had been killed.
The Ukrainian number is significantly lower than the most estimates by the Western press, which range from 100k to as high as 400k.
Zelensky’s strange body language was also closely analyzed during an interview with MSNBC.
Another story claiming that Russia foiled a plot to assassinate Tucker went viral before being called into question.
What do you think: Why is the Russia-Ukraine narrative evolving so quickly? Should the US send more aid or not?
Top Videos
1. Ice Cube explains Hollywood’s role in engineering society
2. Why babies are born with hundreds of toxic chemicals in their bodies:
3. The Charlottesville “fine people” hoax debunked in eight minutes
4. Dave Smith questions RFK Jr’s support for Israel:
4.Mike Benz explains the Yankee and Cowboy mafias, the Internet’s “virality circuit breaker”, and the Navalny hoax
5. Joe Rogan wonders what will happen if the US power grid goes out
6. Russia Hoax 1.0 and “Ukraine will win”
7. Russell Brand asks why so many former Liberals now reject the label
Dogey Treats: News Bites
Elon’s Businesses
Elon said 𝕏 was working on creating XMail to compete with Gmail.
User traffic at 𝕏 approached new monthly highs in February.
Elon predicted the end of big tech this decade.
SpaceX made the first social media post using satellite-to-phone internet service.
US Politics
Elon highlighted a thread of evidence from the House Oversight committee showing evidence of the Biden family’s influence-pedling operation, and questioned why Hunter Biden was paid millions to advise a Ukrainian gas company. Questions emerged about the arrest of an FBI informant who’d previously made statements connecting the Biden family to an influence-peddling scheme.
A poll found that a slight majority of New York Jews plan to vote for Trump over Joe Biden. Biden addressed the theories about Taylor Swift’s relationships with his campaign on late night TV. Trump met with Argentina’s President Javier Milei in a viral moment.
RFK questioned if the Biden Administration isn’t intentionally destroying America, known as the Cloward-Piven strategy.
After news broke that Nancy Pelosi had invested in Palo Alto Networks stock, its price surged 10%. MrBeast made a post lamenting Congressional stock trading but deleted it.
Elon highlighted a debate over the DOJ’s arrest of an FBI whistleblower against the Biden family.
Georgia nursing student Laken Riley was killed by an illegal immigration, sparking debate about illegal immigration. Elon highlighted NYC program to give illegal immigrants $10k.
Geopolitics
Joe Biden said he expected a ceasefire by the end of the coming weekend. Brazilian President Lula doubled down on his claim that Israel is committing genocide despite being banned from the country. What is the relationship between Israel and Epstein?
Elon said a future path for the West was “Martian Technocracy.”
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele criticized George Soros and lamented the state of American cities in a speech to CPAC.
Farmers from 20 countries have joined in protest against EU regulations.
British financier Lord Jacob Rothschild died at age 87.
Global Finance
Reddit said it had purchased Bitcoin with its spare cash. Trump spoke positively about Bitcoin. The White House claimed that Bitcoin mining was straining the power grid.
The EU adopted a law requiring banks to allow instant cross-border payments. The law is expected to go into effect on April.
Health Freedom
Dr. Brian Hooker testified to the Senate that vaccinate children have overall worse health coutomes than unvaccinated children.
Professor Emeritus in Epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health and Medicine Harvey Risch said COVID-19 is a bioweapon.
Misc
AT&T experienced a major service outage on Thursday. Elon highlighted the importance of Starlink as a backup communications system.
Sean “Diddy” Combs was sued by record producer Rodney Jones for alleged sexual assault, harassment, drugging, and threats. Diddy trended Tuesday night as the details of the court case were combed over.
Rapper Fat Joe posted about his purchase of Trump’s “Never Surrender” sneakers.
Elon said he would “get back on the meme grindstone” in response to a call for more memes.
Tucker interviewed Julian Assange’s wife Stella
Memes of the Week
Elon’s Memes
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