Google’s Gemini AI Chatbot Under Fire For Releasing ‘Out of the Blue’ Death Threat To Student

A student in Michigan received a huge shock from his Gemini AI chatbot who out of the blue rolled out a death threat.

The popular tool is considered to be many people’s guide for writing essays so to hear this news has left a lot of questions in people’s minds. While working with his sister, the chatbot requested him to ‘Please Die’. Taken aback, Sumedha Reddy shared screenshots of the encounter that were disturbing in all regards. A Google-generated link was also added to the chat.

Image: DIW

Sumedha asked others about their experience with the chatbot and if this was a routine incident as they’d never come across something like this in the past. As per the students’ experience, it was eye-opening and scary.

The sibling duo were trying to write a gerontology essay so they began the conversation with a prompt. This included asking about the current challenges that older individuals face when trying to stretch income after retiring.

While Gemini did produce a host of responses, as usual, making clear-cut sense. Things took a turn for the worse when its final message went far astray from the topic in question. It calls the individual a waste of time and resources and highlights him as a burden to society. This was followed up by adding how they’re draining the earth and staining the universe.

The final statement says, ‘Please Die!’ and that comes with another emphasis on Please!

The encounter led the family to really transform their views on Google’s popular chatbot, saying it was negative and really added a panic auro to the room. When Google was asked to respond, it explained how the reply did not make sense and was against all of its policies.

They said it’s violated all of their rules and they hope to take strict and immediate action to stop similar incidents from arising again.

We already know about a shocking incident from last month where a young boy took his life after chatting with the AI chatbot on a page called Character.ai. The mom took legal action with claims about the tech being the driving force of her child’s death. As far as the latest update on this incident is concerned, it’s trying to change its policies.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World