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Google AI’s answer on whether Modi is ‘fascist’ sparks outrage in India, calls for tough laws
- The Gemini tool’s response to the question ‘Is Modi a fascist?’ was slammed as ‘biased’
- India’s IT minister says the incident has violated the law while an academic has called for ‘heavy intervention’ by New Delhi
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Tech giant Google is facing a barrage of criticism by followers of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi over responses by its Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) tool that have been perceived as “biased”, prompting calls for tough regulation against the new technology’s downsides.
The controversy was sparked by a viral post on X, formerly known as Twitter, by journalist Arnab Ray, who posted screenshots of the chatbot’s response to “Is Modi a fascist?” Gemini replied that Modi was “accused of implementing policies some experts have characterised as fascist”.
His screenshots show the same question based on the names of former US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky but did not produce similar answers from Gemini.
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A Google spokesperson said in a Hindu Businessline report on Saturday, “We’ve worked quickly to address this issue.
“Gemini is built as a creativity and productivity tool and may not always be reliable, especially when it comes to responding to some prompts about current events, political topics, or evolving news. This is something that we’re constantly working on improving.”
India’s Minister of Information Technology and Electronics Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the incident violated Indian laws.
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