Comment by poundofshrimp

Google likely knew of this issue, but you need to understand that DEI-related missteps are judged a lot more harshly by the society than other types of errors. So, for Google this was likely “choosing the lesser evil” type of scenario. Anticipating edge cases for LLM behavior is very difficult, but it’s hard to imagine that no-one at Google tested vikings and 1940s Germans before the release.