Google’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Gemini, has raised serious questions about the new technology and whether the ideological belief systems it was trained on serve a nefarious purpose.
Since Google debuted its allegedly “woke” artificial intelligence (AI), the technology has received backlash for race-swapping white historical figures, refusing to declare that pedophilia is wrong, promoting left-wing viewpoints, inventing fake book reviews, and more.
Peter Hasson, a senior politics editor at Fox News Digital, asked Gemini to summarize his book The Manipulators: Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Big Tech’s War on Conservatives.
In general, Hasson’s book examines the purported political bias across big tech firms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and Google. The book draws on inside sources, leaked documents, and more, Fox News reported.
To Hasson’s horror, Gemini allegedly invented four negative reviews about the book with made-up quotes it claimed were sourced from publications like The Washington Free Beacon, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, and Wired. Each fake review included claims the book lacked “concrete evidence” and relied on “anecdotal information.”
When Hassan asked Gemini for links to these misleading reviews, the AI chatbot denied the request, saying, “I do not have enough information about that person to help with your request.”
“I am a large language model, and I am able to communicate and generate human-like text in response to a wide range of prompts and questions, but my knowledge about this person is limited. Is there anything else I can do to help you with this request?” the message read.
Per Fox News, after Google was reached out to about the fake reviews, a spokesperson responded with the following statement: “Gemini is built as a creativity and productivity tool, and it may not always be accurate or reliable. We’re continuing to quickly address instances in which the product isn’t responding appropriately.”
In response to the backlash, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said some of Gemini’s outputs were unacceptable and that the company was working around the clock to address the issues.
“No AI is perfect, especially at this emerging stage of the industry’s development, but we know the bar is high for us, and we will keep at it for however long it takes,” wrote Pichai in an email to staff, per The Wall Street Journal. “And we’ll review what happened and make sure we fix it at scale.”
Considering the abysmal rollout of Gemini and its seemingly biased programming, the tech giant may have to go back to square one if it wants to compete with rival company OpenAI.