Conservative influencer sues Google over AI accusing him of fake rape crime & more
In this DML Report…
Conservative activist Robby Starbuck filed a lawsuit against Google on Wednesday in Delaware Superior Court, seeking at least $15 million in damages for alleged defamation through the company's AI programs, including Bard, Gemini, and Gemma. The suit claims these AI tools have spread false information about Starbuck for nearly two years, accusing him of crimes such as sexual assault, rape, harassment, stalking, drug charges, resisting arrest, murder, flying on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane, and sexually assaulting a minor, none of which are true. According to the complaint, Google's AI provided defamatory biographies to users querying about Starbuck, with Gemini reportedly admitting it was engineered to damage reputations of individuals with opposing political views and exposing the falsehoods to 2,843,917 unique users. The lawsuit accuses Google of negligence and actual malice for failing to correct the issues despite multiple cease-and-desist letters from Starbuck's lawyer.
Starbuck stated that the defamation began in 2023 and escalated, with the breaking point being an AI accusation of child rape, prompting him to sue after the recent assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk highlighted potential real-world dangers from such misinformation. He told Fox News Digital that people have approached him believing the false claims, and he views the case as a potential landmark to address AI accountability, warning that current programming allows harm to humans in pursuit of biased interests. Starbuck described AI as having potential to improve lives but posing serious risks if not properly managed, stating, "Right now, the AI believes it's OK to harm humans and defame them as long as it's in the interest of how it was programmed."
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Google responded by stating it could not replicate the results in its consumer products and attributed some issues to hallucinations in Bard addressed in 2023, noting that large language models can produce misleading outputs with creative prompting. Spokesperson José Castañeda said the company needs to review the complaint and prompts used, distinguishing the open-source Gemma model for developers from consumer-facing Gemini. A Fox News Digital query to Gemini on Thursday yielded a response acknowledging accusations against Starbuck as primarily false AI-generated claims. Earlier this year, Starbuck sued Meta over similar AI defamation, resulting in a settlement where he now consults on reducing political bias and hallucinations in their models.