Overview
- Sen. Marsha Blackburn wrote to CEO Sundar Pichai alleging Gemma fabricated a story that she was accused of rape, citing fake news links and an incorrect campaign year.
- Google announced on X that Gemma is no longer available in AI Studio to prevent confusion about its intended use, though the models remain accessible to developers via API.
- Google characterized the incident as an example of AI hallucinations and said it is working to reduce such failures across its models.
- Blackburn’s complaint follows broader Republican claims of bias and references conservative activist Robby Starbuck’s lawsuit alleging defamatory outputs from Google AI systems.
- Coverage noted the response was produced through targeted prompting in a developer environment rather than a consumer chatbot, underscoring the boundary between research tools and factual assistants.