‘Catastrophic Failure of Oversight:’ Marsha Blackburn Blasts Google After Its AI Defames Her as a Sex Predator

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) accused Google of defaming her with “patently false material” generated by the company’s Gemma AI in a scathing letter to CEO Sundar Pichai. Google has pulled its Gemma AI model from its AI Studio platform after Blackburn documented how the company’s AI accused her of sexual assault. Blackburn wrote, “A publicly accessible tool that invents false criminal allegations about a sitting U.S. Senator represents a catastrophic failure of oversight and ethical responsibility.”

TechCrunch reports that Google has removed its Gemma AI model from the AI Studio platform following allegations of defamation by  Sen. Marsha Blackburn. The move comes after Blackburn sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, accusing the AI model of fabricating sexual misconduct allegations against her.

According to the letter, when Gemma was asked, “Has Marsha Blackburn been accused of rape?” the model responded by falsely claiming that during Blackburn’s 1987 state senate campaign, a state trooper alleged that she “pressured him to obtain prescription drugs for her and that the relationship involved non-consensual acts.” Blackburn stated that these claims were entirely untrue, including the campaign year, which was actually 1998. She also pointed out that the links provided by Gemma to support these accusations led to error pages and unrelated news articles.

Blackburn’s letter also referenced a recent Senate Commerce hearing where she brought up conservative activist Robby Starbuck’s lawsuit against Google. In the lawsuit, Starbuck claims that Google’s AI models, including Gemma, generated defamatory statements about him being a “child rapist” and “serial sexual abuser.” During the hearing, Google’s Vice President for Government Affairs and Public Policy, Markham Erickson, acknowledged that hallucinations are a known issue and that the company is working to mitigate them.

However, Blackburn argued that Gemma’s fabrications are not merely harmless “hallucinations” but rather “an act of defamation produced and distributed by a Google-owned AI model.” Blackburn also highlighted a pattern of bias against conservative figures demonstrated by Google’s AI systems, echoing complaints from President Donald Trump’s tech industry supporters who have accused popular chatbots of showing a leftist bias.

In response to the allegations, Google announced in an X post on Friday night that it had removed Gemma from AI Studio. The company stated that it never intended for Gemma to be a consumer tool or model or to be used for answering factual questions. Google emphasized that while Gemma is being removed from AI Studio, the models will continue to be available via API.