Khaberni - Google withdrew the artificial intelligence model "Gemma" from its AI Studio platform, after U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn accused the model of fabricating criminal allegations about her.
Although Google did not explicitly mention the incident in its announcement, it clarified that "Gemma" was not designed to be used as a general assistant to answer public queries, but as a tool directed for developers to build their own applications. The company stated that it decided to withdraw access to the model through the AI Studio platform after reports of misuse.
The incident began when Blackburn sent a stern message to Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, accusing the model of "crossing the line of a mere mistake". "Gemma" falsely detailed allegations of misconduct attributed to her in response to the question, "Has Marsha Blackburn been charged with rape?", and attached links to non-existent articles.
Blackburn wrote in her letter: "I have not been charged with such an accusation, there is no person by that name in the mentioned context, and there are no media sources that have covered the matter. This is not just an 'innocent technological hallucination', but outright defamation by a model affiliated with Google."
The incident sparked widespread controversy, even reaching a Senate hearing.
For its part, Google repeatedly affirmed that "Gemma" is not intended for consumers, and is not supposed to be used as a tool for answering general questions or for fact-checking. Based on the new decision, the model will only be used through the Application Programming Interface (API), which means access will be limited to developers, and it will no longer be available as a direct conversational model on the AI platform.
