Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Google restricts Gemini AI from responding to election-related queries

Google has begun restricting its Gemini AI chatbot from answering questions about the upcoming general elections in India and other countries. The news comes after Gemini was embroiled in a series of controversies last month, following which Google also had to pause Gemini's image generation capabilities.

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Announcing the update in a blog post, Google wrote: “Out of an abundance of caution on such an important topic, we have begun to roll out restrictions on the types of election-related queries for which Gemini will return responses. We take our responsibility for providing high-quality information for these types of queries seriously, and are continuously working to improve our protections.”

Notably, the dates for the Lok Sabha elections are likely to be announced soon, and the general elections could be held in April or May. However, the threat of AI has loomed large over the upcoming elections in India and other countries such as South Africa, the United States and the United Kingdom.

The potential misuse of artificial intelligence technology to interfere with the electoral process has been a point of contention in the tech community. While AI has been used in places like Pakistan to give imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan a voice, in other places like Slovakia, a fake audio recording days before the election caused a major controversy.

Recently, Google's Gemini also faced the wrath of the Indian government after the chatbot gave a controversial response about the Modi government's policies.

Responding to the controversy around Gemini, Minister of State for IT & Electronics Rajeev Chandrasekhar had said, "Platforms like Google are significant powers on the internet. For them to do something wrong and then simply say, 'I'm sorry' or 'I apologize' is certainly not what the law expects them to do,"