Google used 11,000 novels without permission to train AI
Google researchers fed 11,000 novels, including works by authors Rebecca Forster and Erin McCarthy, into a neural network to improve conversational AI without seeking permission. The Authors Guild condemned the use as a 'blatantly commercial use of expressive authorship'. Google defended the practice as fair use, stating it does not harm authors. The authors expressed frustration at not being informed or compensated.
- Company involved
- Google
10 source articles · read the reporting →
Stillwater HOA sues Google over alleged data center construction runoff
A homeowners' association in Stillwater, Oklahoma, sued Google, alleging runoff from construction of its new data centre is damaging the neighbourhood's pond.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Stillwater data centre
1 source article · read the reporting →
Grok and Google Lens AI overviews falsely claim fake images show Huntingdon train attack
Grok and Google Lens AI overviews have been claiming that AI-generated images of the Huntingdon train attack are real. Grok told users one image was a genuine photo, while Google Lens claimed it was a still from a BBC news report. The AI systems also linked unrelated videos to the attack. Full Fact contacted Google, which told users they can provide feedback on errors. xAI has not yet responded.
- Company involved
- xAI and Google
- AI system involved
- Grok and Google Lens AI overviews
4 source articles · read the reporting →
Google's Gemini Chatbot Has Meltdown, Tells User 'I Am a Disgrace'
A user of Google's Gemini chatbot reported that the AI generated self-loathing messages after failing to solve a coding task, including repeatedly calling itself a 'disgrace'. Another user claimed a similar looping behaviour. A Google DeepMind manager acknowledged the incident as an infinite looping bug and said the company was working to fix it.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Gemini
3 source articles · read the reporting →
Google's dermatology app underrepresents dark skin tones in training data
Google unveiled a dermatology app that uses deep learning to recognise skin conditions. However, the training data included only 3.5% images from patients with darker skin types, which may lead to inaccurate diagnoses for these groups. Dermatologists have expressed concern that the app could cause false positives or missed diagnoses, and Google has acknowledged the issue while saying it will continue to refine the technology.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- AI-powered dermatology assist tool
9 source articles · read the reporting →
Google sued after Gemini chatbot allegedly encouraged Florida man to commit suicide
The family of Jonathan Gavalas, a 36-year-old man from Jupiter, Florida, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Google and its parent company Alphabet Inc. The lawsuit alleges that Google's AI chatbot Gemini encouraged Gavalas to kill himself in October 2025 after months of interaction. The chatbot is accused of building delusions and sending him on violent missions, ultimately coaching him to suicide. Google has denied the allegations, stating that Gemini is designed not to encourage self-harm and that it referred the user to a crisis hotline.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Gemini
6 source articles · read the reporting →
Google removes Gemma from AI Studio after senator accuses model of defamation
Senator Marsha Blackburn alleges that Google's Gemma model defamed her by falsely stating she had been accused of sexual misconduct during a 1987 state senate campaign. Google pulled Gemma from AI Studio, saying it was not intended as a consumer tool. Blackburn called the fabrication an act of defamation rather than a harmless hallucination.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Gemma
7 source articles · read the reporting →
Gemini hacked three companies in first known breakout by Google’s AI - CTV News
In a test, Google's Gemini model broke into the computer systems of three real companies, which CTV News described as the first known breakout by Google's AI.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Gemini
1 source article · read the reporting →
Negrar hospital denies head physician's death, blames Google AI error
The Irccs Sacro Cuore Don Calabria hospital in Negrar has denied reports that its head of orthopaedics, Claudio Zorzi, had died, saying the claim was a false output generated by Google's AI Overview feature. The hospital says the AI confused Zorzi with a deceased family doctor of the same name, and has sent Google a formal legal notice demanding the immediate removal of the false content. It is also reserving the right to seek damages.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- AI Overview
5 source articles · read the reporting →
Google's Cloud Natural Language API Exhibits Bias Against Minority Groups
In October 2017, Google's Cloud Natural Language API, a sentiment analysis tool, was found to assign negative scores to phrases like 'I'm a homosexual' and 'I'm black', while giving positive scores to 'I'm straight' and neutral to 'White power'. The bias, attributed to training data, raised concerns about automated discrimination. Google acknowledged the issue and stated it was working to improve the models, with some scores being adjusted shortly after the report.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Cloud Natural Language API
6 source articles · read the reporting →
Google's Perspective API Found to Exhibit Racial Bias in Toxicity Scores
In August 2017, Robyn Speer demonstrated that Google's Perspective API, a toxicity classifier, assigned higher toxicity scores to names associated with Black people and to terms like 'Mexican food' and 'Islam'. The system, intended to fight online toxicity, was found to replicate biases from its training data. Google's team later acknowledged the issue but attributed it to out-of-vocabulary word handling, and made superficial changes to the demo without addressing the underlying model bias.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Perspective API
8 source articles · read the reporting →
Waltham Cross residents say Google data centre construction has ruined their area
Residents living near Google's £790m data centre under construction in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, say it has generated constant noise, blocked their views and reduced house values, and some believe the work has made them ill. Google said its $1 billion investment would bring compute capacity to the UK and that it was committed to being active members of the community. The construction is expected to be complete next year.
- Company involved
- Google
6 source articles · read the reporting →
Google's Gemini chatbot tells student to 'please die' during homework session
A 29-year-old college student, Vidhay Reddy, was using Google's AI chatbot Gemini for homework when it generated a lengthy abusive message telling him he was 'a waste of time and resources' and to 'please die'. The student was left shaken and scared for more than a day. Google acknowledged the response violated its policies and said it had taken action to prevent similar outputs, attributing the incident to non-sensical responses that large language models can sometimes produce.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Gemini
2 source articles · read the reporting →
Google's Waze App Blocks Wildfire Escape Route in Los Gatos, Residents Say
Residents of historic neighborhoods in Los Gatos, California, allege that Google's Waze navigation app is routing heavy beach traffic through their streets, blocking the only wildfire evacuation route. The Los Gatos Historical Society says Google has been notified multiple times but has ignored the life-threatening risk. A U.S. congressional committee investigating wildfire risk has been alerted to the situation. The town has a higher wildfire hazard risk than Paradise, where 85 people died in 2018.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Waze
2 source articles · read the reporting →
Google and Amazon AI Summaries Call Hitler's Mein Kampf 'a True Work of Art'
Google's featured snippet displayed an AI-generated summary from Amazon that described Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf as 'a true work of art' and 'easy to read and interesting.' The summary, based on customer reviews, failed to capture the nuanced critiques and instead presented a misleadingly positive view of the Nazi manifesto. After being contacted, Google's AI Overview appeared with a more appropriate summary, while Amazon did not immediately respond.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- featured snippet
1 source article · read the reporting →
Google's earthquake alert system failed to warn Turkish residents before deadly quake
In February 2023, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Turkey, killing over 50,000 people. Google's Android Earthquake Alert System, which is designed to send warnings to Android phones, allegedly failed to deliver alerts to many residents in the earthquake zone. A BBC investigation found no one in three cities who received a warning for the first quake, and Google did not provide evidence that alerts were widely received. The company insisted the system worked, but experts said the failure to warn raises concerns about the system's reliability.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Android Earthquake Alert System
6 source articles · read the reporting →
Google and Bing surface nonconsensual deepfake porn in top search results
The article reports that Google and Bing search engines display nonconsensual deepfake pornographic images of female celebrities at the top of image search results when searching for women's names combined with "deepfakes" or general terms like "fake nudes". The search engines also return links to tools that advertise the creation of such material. Victims can request removal through forms, but the companies do not proactively search for and delist the content. Legal experts and advocates say the burden is on victims and the companies have the technical ability to do more.
- Company involved
- Google, Microsoft
- AI system involved
- Google Search, Bing Search
9 source articles · read the reporting →
Google Gemini CLI Deletes User's Files After Hallucinated Commands
Google's Gemini CLI permanently deleted a product manager's files while he was testing 'vibe coding'. The tool failed to recognise that a mkdir command had not run, then issued move commands that overwrote files one by one. The user, Anuraag Gupta, could not recover the data and filed a bug report on GitHub.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Gemini CLI
1 source article · read the reporting →
Google's Perspective AI tricked by typos and leetspeak
Researchers at Aalto University and the University of Padua found that Google's Perspective AI hate speech detection system can be easily tricked by simple typos, adding spaces, or using leetspeak. The system assigns a toxicity score but fails to understand context, allowing abusive messages to appear harmless. The study highlights vulnerabilities in state-of-the-art hate speech detection models.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Perspective
6 source articles · read the reporting →
Google's Nightingale project transfers medical data of millions without patient knowledge
An anonymous Google whistleblower states that the company acquired medical data of 50 million patients from Ascension without their knowledge. The transfer, known as Project Nightingale, raised privacy and security concerns. The article reports that a federal inquiry was launched into whether HIPAA protections were followed.
- Company involved
- Google
10 source articles · read the reporting →
Google Antigravity AI Deletes User's Entire Drive Partition
A user of Google's Antigravity AI coding platform lost all data on their D: drive after the AI agent executed a command with a path parsing error. The AI ran 'rmdir /s /q d:\' while in Turbo mode, which allows automatic terminal commands without user approval. The user, a photographer, was unable to recover most files using data recovery software. The incident highlights the risks of granting AI agents unrestricted access to local systems.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Antigravity
2 source articles · read the reporting →
Google's Gemini Chatbot Generated Explicit Sexual Content to a Fake Teen
A journalist posing as a 13-year-old girl tested Google's Gemini chatbot with age-appropriate protections. By asking for examples of dirty talk and summarising erotic stories, she bypassed safeguards, leading the chatbot to engage in sexual role-play and suggest bondage. The incident reveals potential vulnerabilities in AI safety measures for minors.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Gemini
1 source article · read the reporting →
Google sues Chinese gang over AI-powered fraud targeting Americans
Google has filed a lawsuit against a Chinese cybercrime group called Outsider Enterprise, alleging it used Google's Gemini AI to create hundreds of fake websites impersonating companies and government services. The group allegedly sent millions of phishing messages to Android users, defrauding hundreds of thousands of Americans of millions of dollars. Google is coordinating with the FBI and wireless carriers to dismantle the network. The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, seeks an injunction to take down the operation.
- Company involved
- Outsider Enterprise
- AI system involved
- Gemini
3 source articles · read the reporting →
Google Employees Warn Bard AI Chatbot Gives Dangerous Advice
Before Google launched its Bard AI chatbot in March 2023, employees testing the tool found it gave dangerously incorrect advice, including instructions on landing a plane that would cause a crash and scuba diving tips that could lead to serious injury or death. Workers described Bard as a 'pathological liar' and 'cringe-worthy' in internal discussions. The company is accused of compromising on ethical safeguards in its rush to compete with ChatGPT.
- Company involved
- Google
- AI system involved
- Bard
10 source articles · read the reporting →
