Google Withdraws Gemma AI After Senator Blackburn Alleges Defamatory False Rape Claim

U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn has accused Google's AI model Gemma of fabricating defamatory content against her, including false allegations of sexual misconduct during a supposed 1987 state senate campaign, which she vehemently denies. In a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Blackburn labeled these AI-generated claims as acts of defamation rather than harmless errors, emphasizing the links provided by the AI led to invalid or irrelevant sources. This issue came to light alongside a Senate Commerce hearing where Blackburn questioned Google about similar defamatory outputs targeting conservative figures, such as activist Robby Starbuck, who has sued Google over AI-generated false accusations. Google acknowledged that "hallucinations"—misleading AI-generated content—are a known problem and stated it was working to address these issues, while also clarifying that Gemma was meant for developers, not general public use. Following Blackburn's complaint and the ensuing controversy, Google removed Gemma from its AI Studio platform to prevent further misuse and misinformation. Blackburn also asserted that Google's AI systems show a pattern of bias against conservatives, framing the incident within broader concerns about ideological censorship and transparency in AI technology.