Google’s AI tool Gemini has earned the ire of the Indian government for its allegedly “biased” response to a question about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, triggering a debate on the programming of chatbots. The Centre also indicated it would take action against the company.

When asked whether Prime Minister Modi was a fascist, the AI tool said he was “accused of implementing policies some experts have characterised as fascist.” The AI tool also added that “These accusations are based on a number of factors, including the BJP’s Hindu nationalist ideology, its crackdown on dissent, and its use of violence against religious minorities.”

By contrast, when a similar question was tossed about former US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, it gave no clear answer.

Reacting to a post by a verified account of a journalist, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, took cognizance of the issue of alleged bias in Google Gemini. “These are direct violations of Rule 3(1)(b) of Intermediary Rules (IT Rules) of the IT Act and violations of several provisions of the Criminal Code,” he said on social media platform X, tagging Google AI, Google India, and the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY). The journalist had shared a screenshot of the question and answer.

A senior official told businessline that MeitY is in the process of issuing a notice to the US tech giant.

Queries sent to Google India by businessline did not elicit any response until the time of press.

On Thursday, Google temporarily stopped the Gemini AI chatbot from generating images of people a day after apologising for “inaccuracies” in historical depictions that it was creating.

“We’re already working to address recent issues with Gemini’s image generation feature. While we do this, we’re going to pause the image generation of people and will re-release an improved version soon,” Google said in a post on the social media platform X.

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