Google removes AI model after it accuses US Senator of sexual misconduct
Google pulls AI tool after it falsely accuses US Senator of serious crime
- Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn accused Google's AI model, Gemma, of fabricating criminal allegations against her.
- Blackburn claimed Gemma produced fake links to non-existent news articles alleging sexual misconduct when asked if she had been accused of rape.
- In a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Senator Blackburn criticised the incident as defamation and part of a "consistent pattern of bias against conservatives", calling for the AI tool's shutdown.
- Google responded by stating that "hallucinations" are a known issue with smaller open-source AI models like Gemma, which is intended for developers and researchers, not for consumer factual queries.
- As a result, Google removed Gemma from its AI Studio platform, though it remains accessible to developers via its application programming interface (API).