Google now restricting queries to its AI chatbot Gemini related to elections

03/18/2024 / By Ava Grace

Big Tech company and search giant Google has confirmed that it will begin rolling out restrictions on its artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, Gemini, specifically to limit providing answers about election-related queries globally.

This update to Gemini is already live in the United States. Google has also begun rolling it out in India and all other major countries around the world where elections are set to take place in the coming months.

The shift highlights not only the role that generative AI has been playing, and has the potential to play, in the election process, but also Google’s concern about how the service might get weaponized, as well as produce inaccurate or misleading responses. (Related: U.S., Canadian AI companies COLLABORATE with Chinese experts to shape international AI policy.)

Queries regarding political parties, candidates or politicians now return a preset message. When a query about a particular political party or candidate is asked, Gemini shows a message: “I’m still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search.”

In some cases, the tool can still be gamed. In its own analysis, TechCrunch found that the AI tool can be compelled to show answers when passing on queries regarding elections that have typos.

A separate investigation by the BBC found that when Gemini is pressed in a series of follow-up questions about Indian politics, Gemini was able to supply more detailed responses about the country’s major political parties.

“It’s likely that the responses will continue to be tweaked in a game of prompt engineering whack-a-mole,” reported TechCrunch tech policy-focused writer Jagmeet Singh.

AI chatbots could influence elections all over the world

Gemini is Google’s answer to the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT. It can answer questions in text form and also generate pictures.

Elections are due to be held in countries around the world this year, including the United States, India, the United Kingdom and South Africa.

The update to Gemini was released just before the announcement of the election period in India, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi set to easily win reelection, if polling is to be believed.

“Out of an abundance of caution on such an important topic, we have begun to roll out restrictions on the types of election-related queries for which Gemini will return responses. We take our responsibility for providing high-quality information for these types of queries seriously, and are continuously working to improve our protections,” Google said in a blog post related to the move in India.

This change to Gemini also comes as, earlier this month, New Delhi issued an advisory to Big Tech company that formally restricts them from releasing new and relatively untested AI models in the country without government approval.

This advisory followed a scandal over Gemini and the Indian government when it supposedly gave an answer to a query suggesting that Modi was implementing policies that can be characterized as fascist. Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar described this as a “direct violation” of the ministry’s rules for tech giants.

It is unclear whether Google will unblock Gemini from answering election-related queries after the elections end.

Visit BigTech.news for more stories about AI chatbots like Gemini.

Watch this video of Dave Rubin discussing the very disturbing answers that Google’s Gemini AI can give.

This video is from the GalacticStorm channel on Brighteon.com.