Google stops chatbot taking election queries
GOOGLE has introduced restrictions to prevent its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot from answering questions about forthcoming elections.
The US tech giant said it had made the change to Gemini’s AI “out of an abundance of caution”, as it responds to fears that its chatbot could produce misleading or biased answers.
It comes as billions of people prepare to go to the polls in the coming months, including in Britain and the United States.
Google had signalled in December that Bard, the previous version of its chatbot, would not answer questions about the US presidential election.
However, it has now also rolled out the restrictions to Gemini. When asked about the forthcoming election contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, a typical Gemini response is: “I’m still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search.”
Google said: “In preparation for the many elections happening around the world in 2024 and out of an abundance of caution, we are restricting the types of election-related questions for which Gemini will return responses.”
Scrutiny of Google’s AI has been heightened in recent weeks after its chatbot generated ethically diverse yet implausible images of historical figures. That included images of “diverse” Nazis and American Indian “Vikings”. The controversy led to Sundar Pichai, the chief executive, accepting that the chatbot’s responses were “unacceptable” and had “offended our users and shown bias”.
There have been growing concerns about the reliability of AI chatbots because they can struggle to discern the truth, occasionally producing answers that are incorrect. This is a problem known as “hallucination”.
There are also broader concerns that AI tools could be used to generate fake images or uncanny audio clips.
Late last year, a deepfake audio clip of Sir Keir Starmer was spread on social media, purporting to capture the Labour leader abusing party staffers. However, the audio was not real and the incident did not happen.
‘I’m still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search’