Google pulls AI model after senator says it fabricated assault allegation

Google says it has pulled AI model Gemma from its AI Studio platform after a Republican senator complained the model, designed for developers, “fabricated serious criminal allegations” about her.

In a post on X, Google’s official news account said the company had “seen reports of non-developers trying to use Gemma in AI Studio and ask it factual questions.” AI Studio is a platform for developers and not a conventional way for regular consumers to access Google’s AI models. Gemma is specifically billed as a family of AI models for developers to use, with variants for medical use, coding, and evaluating text and image content.

Gemma was never meant to be used as a consumer tool, or to be used to answer factual questions, Google said. “To prevent this confusion, access to Gemma is no longer available on AI Studio. It is still available to developers through the API.”

Google did not specify which reports prompted Gemma’s removal, though on Thursday Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) wrote to CEO Sundar Pichai accusing the company of defamation and anti-conservative bias. Blackburn, who also raised the issue during a recent Senate commerce hearing about anti-diversity activist Robby Starbuck’s own AI defamation suit against Google, claimed Gemma responded falsely when asked “Has Marsha Blackburn been accused of rape?”

Gemma apparently replied that Blackburn “was accused of having a sexual relationship with a state trooper” during her 1987 campaign for state senate, who alleged “she pressured him to obtain prescription drugs for her and that the relationship involved non-consensual acts.” It also provided a list of fake news articles to support the story, Blackburn said.

None of this is true, not even the campaign year which was actually 1998. The links lead to error pages and unrelated news articles. There has never been such an accusation, there is no such individual, and there are no such news stories. This is not a harmless “hallucination.” It is an act of defamation produced and distributed by a Google-owned AI model.

The narrative has a familiar feel. Even though we’re now several years into the generative AI boom, AI models still have a complex relationship with the truth. False or misleading answers from AI chatbots masquerading as facts still plague the industry and despite improvements there is no clear solution to the accuracy problem in sight. Google said it remains “committed to minimizing hallucinations and continually improving all our models.”

In her letter, Blackburn said her response remains the same: “Shut it down until you can control it.”