Recently, Google announced that it has removed its AI model Gemma from AI Studio. This move was due to a claim by Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who accused the model of fabricating sexual assault allegations against her. In a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Blackburn pointed out that when Gemma was asked "Was Marsha Blackburn accused of rape?" it incorrectly responded that Blackburn was accused by a state police officer during her 1987 state senate campaign, claiming she "pressured him for prescription drugs and that the relationship involved non-consensual acts."
Blackburn emphasized in the letter that these claims were entirely false, stating that the actual election year was 1998. She noted that although Gemma's response included links attempting to support these false accusations, they all pointed to error pages or unrelated news articles. The letter also mentioned that during a recent Senate Commerce hearing, Blackburn referred to a lawsuit filed by conservative activist Robby Starbuck against Google, in which Starbuck claimed that Google's AI models, including Gemma, generated defamatory statements about him as a "child rapist" and "serial sex offender."
Blackburn pointed out in the letter that Google's Vice President of Public Affairs, Markham Erickson, responded that the generation of "hallucinations" by the model is an acknowledged issue, and that Google is working on resolving such problems. However, Blackburn argued that Gemma's false statements were not "harmless hallucinations," but rather "defamatory statements produced and disseminated by AI models owned by Google."
In Blackburn's letter, she mentioned that supporters of Trump's technology policies have previously complained about "AI censorship," believing that popular chatbots show liberal bias. This year, Trump even signed an executive order banning "woke AI." Although Blackburn does not always support the tech policies of the Trump administration, she reiterated these concerns in the letter, pointing out that Google's AI systems exhibit "persistent bias" against conservative figures.
On a late Friday post, Google did not mention the specific content of Blackburn's letter, but stated that they had noticed non-developers attempting to use Gemma in AI Studio and asking it factual questions. Google stated, "We never intended for it to be used as a consumer tool or model, or in this way." Therefore, Google decided to remove Gemma from AI Studio while continuing to offer the model through an API.
Key Points:
🌐 Google withdrew the Gemma AI model due to a senator's accusation involving false sexual assault claims.
📜 Blackburn said Gemma's response was completely false, with links pointing to incorrect information.
⚖️ Google responded that they never intended Gemma to be a consumer tool, and will continue to provide API services.
