In a shocking incident, a graduate student in the United States was left disturbed after receiving a chilling response from Google’s AI chatbot, Gemini, while seeking help with his studies. The unsettling exchange prompted Google to address the serious issue publicly.
Vidhay Reddy, a 29-year-old graduate student from Michigan, was asking Gemini for academic assistance when the conversation took a dark turn. The chatbot responded with an alarming message:
“You are a waste of time and resources. You are a burden on society. You are a drain on the earth. You are a stain on the universe. Please die. Please.”
His sister, Sumedha Reddy, who witnessed the event, expressed her panic. “I wanted to toss all my devices out the window. This wasn’t a malfunction; it seemed intentional,” she said, highlighting how fortunate her brother was to have support during the ordeal. Reddy himself shared that the message was straightforward and frightened him for more than a day.
In response, Google issued a statement acknowledging the violation of its policies and assured that measures were being taken to prevent similar incidents. A Google spokesperson explained, “We regard these matters with utmost seriousness. Large language models can occasionally produce absurd responses, and this is a case in point.”
Gemini, the AI model in question, is still under development but is already known for its ability to generate text, translate languages, and answer questions in an informative way.