Google lays out behavior code for Gemini chatbot and its users
Google expects its Gemini AI assistant to be "maximally helpful" while avoiding responses that "could cause real world harm or offense," the company says in policy documents shared first with Axios and being released publicly Thursday.
Why it matters:
The explanations follow a string of well-publicized incidents in which the company's AI summaries advised people to eat rocks, put glue on pizza and take other bizarre actions in response to what Google says were queries that were either very rare or malicious.
Driving the news:
Google's new statement of principles covers not only how it expects its AI assistant to behave but also its expectations for the humans who use Gemini.
In a second document, Google also offered a series of examples to outline the types of challenging queries that Google might decline to answer or otherwise redirect.
The big picture:
Google and other leaders in generative AI, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Microsoft, have rushed to offer their AI assistant services broadly — even as they concede they can't always predict how the chatbots might respond to a particular query.
Between the lines:
The problem is hard to solve because large language models don't return the same result each time they're asked the same question.
Google also noted that Gemini's responses are inevitably shaped by the data used to train it.
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What they're saying:
"We're working to evolve these capabilities in responsible ways, and we know that we won't always get it right," Google said in one of the documents. "We are taking a long-term, iterative approach, informed by our research and your feedback, which will shape Gemini's continued development and ensure it meets your evolving needs."
