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Google AI Politics

Google Restricts AI Chatbot Gemini From Answering Queries on Global Elections (reuters.com) 53

Google is restricting AI chatbot Gemini from answering questions about the global elections set to happen this year, the Alphabet-owned firm said on Tuesday, as it looks to avoid potential missteps in the deployment of the technology. From a report: The update comes at a time when advancements in generative AI, including image and video generation, have fanned concerns of misinformation and fake news among the public, prompting governments to regulate the technology.

When asked about elections such as the upcoming U.S. presidential match-up between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Gemini responds with "I'm still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search". Google had announced restrictions within the U.S. in December, saying they would come into effect ahead of the election. "In preparation for the many elections happening around the world in 2024 and out of an abundance of caution, we are restricting the types of election-related queries for which Gemini will return responses," a company spokesperson said on Tuesday.

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Google Restricts AI Chatbot Gemini From Answering Queries on Global Elections

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  • Makes sense (Score:4, Funny)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2024 @03:31PM (#64310227) Homepage

    Way to go, Google. Let people get their election information from Facebook and X, where we know there's no problem whatsoever with bad actors spewing false info. No siree.

  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2024 @03:31PM (#64310229)

    "Google is restricting AI chatbot Gemini from answering questions about the global elections set to happen this year, ..."

    We're gonna have global elections now? The conspiracy nutters were right! Quick, Ma, where's my gun? The Freemasons and the Rothschilds are a-comin' for us!

    • I hear we're electing the Leader of the Free World.

      Top contenders are a possibly senile old man, and a possibly senile old man who wants to be "dictator for a day".

      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        possibly senile old man who wants to be "dictator for a day".

        You mean dictator for life. After all, the last time he was in power he attempted to stage a coup in order to co-opt the peaceful transfer of power.

        Heck, he's still attempting to get the courts to say that he has immunity from criminal prosecution for life.

    • Around half of the world's population are voting in elections this year because of the way the election cycles have aligned.

    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      We're gonna have global elections now?

      No. The New World Order doesn't care to hear your opinion.

      You vil eat ze bugs!

    • Maybe the future results haven't been decided yet?

  • Fuck censorship (Score:3, Insightful)

    by detritus. ( 46421 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2024 @03:40PM (#64310261)

    As we've all expected, algorithms covertly and now overtly are being shaped to form our opinions and limit access to information.
    Information must be free. Any suggestion of misinformation is only an advocacy of censorship.

    As if google's search results/algorithms are more representative of the truth than an LLM prompted to spit out search summaries under it's own secret proprietary criteria...

    And people are still upset about a little J6 rally, and now they don't even have to hide what they did leading up to 2020, they're getting the public to accept and defend taking away their right to freedom of speech and categorical bans of whatever the government or their "fact checkers" to be disinformation/misinformation, or... my favorite, malinformation - information that's true but inconvenient.

    • And of course this downmodded.
      Pathetic.

      • Yep.

      • Loooota libs really, really into political censorship these days, even as they wax hysterically about the censorship of a handful of highly explicit, pornographic books they've intentionally added to children's libraries just to get a reaction.

        The hypocrisy is real on both sides, but the left has elevated it to a democracy threatening tool.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by rogoshen1 ( 2922505 )

          They aren't even actually liberal.
          Liberalism is: "I may not agree with what you have to say, but I'd fight to death to defend your right to say it"

          These are progressives, and they have gone completely crackers, something about a slightly orange tinted man saying mean things on Twitter has caused them to abandon all humanity and common sense.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by alvinrod ( 889928 )
            I wouldn't even call them progressives. If you really drill down to what they think it's some repackaged version of Marxism which is neither progressive nor liberal. I wouldn't care if they wanted to go start their own little community and live in their own little socialist utopia, but they only ever demand that everyone else have to change and that society be overhauled to suit their desires. They're authoritarian tyrants and deserve to be called as such. Actual liberals and progressives should cast them o
            • They're far left. I agree, these people have cast aside centuries of progressivism in favor of censorship and lawfare cuz they decided (long, long before Jan 6) that, somehow their political enemy in the next election was too dangerous to be allowed to continue to oppose them. It's what we get for letting college campuses shit out little commie grunts for 70 years.

              At best, they're the Jedi at the end of Episode 3.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Calydor ( 739835 )

          Umm, are you saying the January 6th riot wasn't a threat to democracy?

          • Certainly not a serious one compared to the level at which some media outlets claim it to be. Trump, sure. Absolutely, but Jan 6? No not really. I mean, why didn't they show up with some actual guns and make some real shit happen? Seems like a small group of well trained, well armed individuals could of totally taken the place but that's not remotely even close to what happened.

            It mostly looked like a bunch of Yahoos running around acting like idiots. Yes, some people did die and things got out of hand, but

            • And the few who died were Trump supporters, except I think one cop who had a heart attack. One Trump supporter was accidentally trampled.

              https://www.factcheck.org/2021... [factcheck.org]

            • by gweihir ( 88907 )

              It mostly looked like a bunch of Yahoos running around acting like idiots. Yes, some people did die and things got out of hand, but an actual real threat to Democracy? No, that's blowing things well out of proportion.

              Sure. But the law says even people that are too dumb to overthrow democracy are guilty when they try to. And yes, that includes Trump himself.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by penguinoid ( 724646 )

            Let's elect the guy who wants to be "dictator for one day" and who says it should be illegal to arrest him for shooting his political opponents.

          • Correct, it wasn't. However, the election fuckery that spawned them is, and remains, a far worse threat to democracy. I'm looking forward to more mail in ballot hijinks and the additional 7 mil "new americans" Biden's let in -- which of course the DNC will fight tooth and nail for allowing to vote (because presenting an ID is too onerous of a requirement for certain groups to figure manage? What the fuck.)

            All that ranting aside though, as as your queen even said:
            >the purpose of protest is to make people

            • (desserts! I only pretend to be illiterate, I promise.)

            • albeit they were fiery, but mostly peaceful, right?

              Yes they were mostly peaceful. Something like 300 times more peaceful, and 5000 times larger. If you don't understand why something that's 5000 times bigger is bigger, then there is no hope for you. Here are the numbers. Feel free to ignore them and start parroting the usual right wing talking points without letting your brain engage:

              Jan 6 riots. $30,000,000 damage, 2000 protestors: $15,000 per person. Let's take into account the usual anti-government rants

            • by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Trump didn't organize the riots (or insurrection? depending on your level of desired hyperbole), didn't spur them on, and the only instruction he gave was for them to be peaceful and later, to go home.

              Revising history there, are you? Not good.

          • Not really. It was a fairly small number of morons acting in the the moment. They didn't bring weapons, they had no plan, and not even the remotest chance of success. What do you think was likely to happen, they'd make that guy with that paint and the big hat dictator of the U.S.?

            How exactly was this supposed coup ever going to be successful?

            Even for a riot, it was really, really minor.

          • I don't know if he is, but I am. When the government fears the people there is liberty.
            • by Calydor ( 739835 )

              Did you know that one of the most common human reactions to fearing something is to kill it?

              • Are you claiming the US government is ready to go to war against its own citizens? And at the same time are you advocating against vigorous protest?
                • by Calydor ( 739835 )

                  I am not saying they are ready to; I am simply pointing out what a common reaction to fearing something is.

                  If, on the other hand, we could figure out a way of cooperating because we like each other - wouldn't that be a better world?

                  Why do you need to be feared by your government? Is it because you feel powerless in your everyday life, and the thought that someone technically more powerful than you fears you gives you a good feeling about being in control of something, at least?

                  • Oh, okay. You're not saying it, just implying the hell out of it. Big difference. Well you got me there. My feelings of powerlessness dictate my politics. Great job, Freud! Let me try. Why do you want to give all the power to the government, is it because your mother over-nurtured you leading to a sense of abandonment when you had to leave home, and so you had to find a proxy parent?
                    • by Calydor ( 739835 )

                      I only want to give as much power to the government as they need to actually make the country they govern run. Hell if I would know how to split up the tax income to properly take care of roads, schools, hospitals, law enforcement, etc.

                      Now, I'm not saying politicians should be immune, only that what they should fear is not getting re-elected, getting put on trial for doing illegal stuff, and so on. Fearing an armed insurrection does not keep the government in check; it only means that your country is an uns

      • It's a little ironic that the OG system Slashdot is now polluted by users who have been trained on derivatives (Digg, Reddit) and fester in a culture that they know that points means visbility. Reddit's entire culture is trained on collective voting means visibility, and enough downvotes mean suppression. Forget the role of a moderator, it's about having the power stick for 15 whole points to express it. It's still better than Reddit, I'd be quarantined/shadowbanned for making a quip like that.

    • As we've all expected, algorithms covertly and now overtly are being shaped to form our opinions and limit access to information.
      Information must be free. Any suggestion of misinformation is only an advocacy of censorship.

      This isn't an attempt to covertly sway your vote in the election.

      This is an attempt to stop bad actors from building Chatbots with Gemini to covertly sway your vote in the election.

      And people are still upset about a little J6 rally,

      Attempted insurrection complete with chants to execute the VP who was inside the building they stormed.

      and now they don't even have to hide what they did leading up to 2020,

      You mean conducting a relatively fair election?

    • So basically you're saying that nothing is real, all accounts of all events are equally true. Black is white. Death is life, Freedom is censorship.
  • Should just redirect to Goody-2.

  • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2024 @03:51PM (#64310291)

    (Concerned Citizen) “OK Google. Is the President and Vice President qualified for th..”

    (Karine Jean-Van Wilder Firewall) ”No more queries for the day, thank you.”

  • If Gemini won't do it, there's always ChatGPT, Jasper, Chatsonic, Copilot, and probably many others that can and likely will be used to create disinformation, sow hatred and discord, and ensure that the Second Civil War remains a real possibility.

    As always, I cordially invite any and all to prove me wrong.

    • > .. many others that can and likely will be used to create disinformation ..
      Can you provide some examples of “disinformation” ?
    • many others that can and likely will be used to create disinformation, sow hatred and discord, and ensure that the Second Civil War remains a real possibility

      Civil wars do not start because of 'bad people' that "create disinformation" and "sow hatred and discord" and whatever else. Somebody (some would say everybody, to some extent) is always doing that. Civil wars start because politics of a country become so factionalized and political dialog breaks down so completely that some people eventually decide that the only way to deal with those who have opposing political views is by pointing a gun at them. In other words, fanaticism. People who believe that their p

  • by Z80a ( 971949 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2024 @05:24PM (#64310599)

    How do i make both the republican and democratic parties lose to a party named "the republic of zeon"?

  • With ~200 countries, and elections every ~4 years, that's ~50 a year on average. Which is about what we have this year.

    Oh, are this year's elections the "important" ones? Tell that to the other countries.

    Average year.

  • Everyone knows it's biased because a racist piece of shit was in charge of the project. Look up some of his tweets. He's basically Hitler.
    But go ahead and ask any AI chat bot what happened on May 15 2020. You're more likely to find results on Tiananmen Square than when racist lefties broke past the white house barriers, set things on fire, burned churches, and the president was forced into a bunker. It was 100x worse than Jan 6th and most people don't even know it happened. The US and its garbage tech comp

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