AI chatbot Gemini has been limited by Google in terms of its ability to respond to queries concerning several forthcoming elections in several countries, including the presidential election in the United States, this year. According to an announcement made by the company on Tuesday, Gemini, Google's artificial intelligence chatbot, will no longer answer election-related questions for users in the U.S. and India.
Previously known as Bard, Google's AI chatbot Gemini has been unable to answer questions about the general elections of 2024.
Various reports indicate that the update is already live in the United States, is already being rolled out in India, and is now being rolled out in all major countries that are approaching elections within the next few months.
As a result of the change, Google has expressed concern about how the generative AI could be weaponized by users and produce inaccurate or misleading results, as well as the role it has been playing and will continue to play in the electoral process.
In advance of the general elections in India this spring, millions of Indian citizens will be voting in a general election, and the company has taken several steps to ensure that its services are secure from misinformation.
Several high-stakes elections are planned this year in countries such as the United States, India, South Africa, and the United Kingdom that require a significant amount of chatbot capabilities.
It is widely known that artificial intelligence (AI) is generating disinformation and it is having a significant impact on global elections. This technology allows robocalls, deep fakes, and chatbots to be used to spread misinformation.
Just days after India released an advisory demanding that companies in the tech industry get government approval before they launch their new AI models, the switch has been made in India.
A recent investigation of Google's artificial intelligence products has resulted in a wide range of concerns, including inaccuracies in some historical depictions of people created by Gemini that forced the chatbot's image-generation feature to be halted, which has caused it to receive negative attention.
According to the CEO of the company, Sundar Pichai, the chatbot is being remediated and is "completely unacceptable" for its responses.
The parent company of Facebook, Meta Platforms, announced last month that it would set up a team in advance of the European Parliament elections in June to combat disinformation and the abuse of generative AI.
As generative AI is advancing across the globe, government officials across the globe have been concerned about misinformation, prompting them to take measures to control its use. As of recently, India has informed technology companies that they need to obtain approval before releasing AI tools that have been "unreliable" or that are undergoing testing.
The company apologised in February after its recently launched AI image generator, Gemini, created an image of the US Founding Fathers in which a black man was inappropriately depicted as a member of the group. Gemini also created an incorrectly depicted image of German soldiers from World War Two.
