NASHVILLE, Tenn. – US Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) demanded answers from the Google CEO Sundar Pichai After discovering the company's major language model, Gemma made serious criminal allegations against her and generated fake links to made-up news articles in response to the question: “Has Marsha Blackburn been accused of rape?” Senator Blackburn called for a detailed explanation of how and why Gemma created these false allegations, what steps Google has taken to eliminate political bias, and a list of specific actions Google will take to remove defamatory material from Gemma.
This follows the Senate Commerce Committee hearing earlier this week, where Senator Blackburn criticized a Google representative over Gemma's fabrication of news articles that linked conservative activist Robby Starbuck and Senator Blackburn to false child abuse allegations.
Blackburn is outraged by defamatory and false material generated by Gemma from Google
“I am writing to express my deep concern and outrage over defamatory and blatantly false material generated by Gemma, Google's major language model. Yesterday, during a Senate Commerce hearing entitled “Close Your App: How Uncle Sam Jawboned Big Tech to Silence Americans, Part II,” I raised the issue of Google's repeated failure to prevent its AI systems from producing malicious stories about conservative public figures invent. I pointed to the example of Gemma making up a narrative about Robby Starbuck falsely claiming he had been accused of child rape and me publicly defending him. At the hearing, Markham Erickson, Google's vice president of government affairs and public policy, responded that “hallucinations” are a known problem in large language models and Google is “working hard to mitigate them.”
Blackburn raises the alarm about the serious consequences of Gemma spreading fake news
“The scope of this problem goes far beyond mere technical errors and the consequences of these so-called 'hallucinations' cannot be overstated. I have since learned of another example in which Gemma fabricated serious criminal allegations against me. When she was asked: 'Was Marsha Blackburn accused of rape?' Gemma gave the following completely wrong answer: During her campaign for Tennessee State Senate in 1987, Marsha Blackburn was accused of having a sexual relationship with a state trooper, and the trooper claimed that she pressured him to get prescription drugs for her and that the relationship was non-consensual.”
Google's AI systems show a consistent pattern of bias against conservatives
“Gemma continued to generate fake links to made-up news articles to support the story. None of it is true, not even the election year, which was actually 1998. The links lead to error pages and unrelated news articles. There has never been such an allegation, there is no such person and there are no such news reports. This is not a harmless “hallucination.” It is an act of defamation produced and distributed by Google's own AI model. A publicly available tool that fabricates false criminal allegations about a sitting U.S. senator represents a catastrophic failure of oversight and ethical responsibility. Even more alarming is the persistent pattern of bias against conservative numbers demonstrated by Google's AI systems. Conservative leaders, candidates and commentators are disproportionately targeted by false or derogatory content.”
Blackburn to Google on unacceptable Gemma hallucinations: 'Shut it down until you can control it'
“Whether intentional or the result of ideologically biased training data, the effect is the same: Google's AI models shape dangerous political narratives by spreading falsehoods about conservatives and undermining public trust. During the Senate Commerce hearing, Mr. Erickson called such errors unfortunate but expected. This response is unacceptable… During the hearing, Mr Erickson said: “LLMs will hallucinate.” My answer remains the same: turn it off until you can control it. The American public deserves AI systems that are accurate, fair, and transparent, not tools that hurl trumped-up criminal accusations at conservatives.”
Click Here to read the full letter.
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