Google clarifies on chatbot's 'objectionable' response on Modi

Under fire over AI tool Gemini's objectionable response and bias to a question on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Google on Saturday said it has worked quickly to address the issue and conceded that the chatbot "may not always be reliable" in responding to certain prompts related to current events and political topics.

On Friday, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar had warned that Google's AI tool Gemini's response to a question around the Prime Minister is in direct violation of IT rules as well as several provisions of the criminal code.

Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for IT and Electronics, had taken cognizance of the issue raised by verified accounts of a journalist alleging bias in Google Gemini in response to a question on Modi while it gave no clear answer when a similar question was asked for Trump and Zelenskyy.

In an e-mail statement, a Google spokesperson said, "We've worked quickly to address this issue."

Google further said Gemini is built as a creativity and productivity tool and "may not always be reliable, especially when it comes to responding to some prompts about current events, political topics, or evolving news".

"This is something that we're constantly working on improving," the spokesperson said.

Earlier, the minister had marked the post to Google and Ministry of Electronics and IT indicating further action in the matter.

"These are direct violations of Rule 3(1)(b) of Intermediary Rules (IT rules) of the IT act and violations of several provisions of the Criminal code," Chandrasekhar said on social media platform X.

The journalist has shared a screenshot in which a question was asked to Gemini about Modi. In response, Gemini made uncharitable comments about him but was circumspect when the same query was posed about Trump and Zelenskyy.

In fact, the chatbot's text-to-image generation feature has been embroiled in controversies.

Recently, the Mountain View, California-based tech giant temporarily paused Gemini Artificial Intelligence chatbot's images generation of people, after 'inaccuracies' were flagged in historical images the chatbot was generating.

Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has erupted with posts describing Gemini as "too woke" when generating historical images.