'I have failed you': Google’s Gemini AI deletes user's files, later apologises for ‘Catastrophic’ error
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "'I have failed you': Google’s Gemini AI deletes user's files, later apologises for ‘Catastrophic’ error")
Representational Image. Photograph: (Pexels)
The tragedy with the user unfolded after he gave a prompt to the tool, commanding it to rename the folder and move the contents to a new folder called the ‘anuraag_xyz project.’
In a surprising turn of events, a software developer recently experienced trouble with Google Gemini’s AI tool, which ended up deleting his files and then later issued an apology for the irreversible loss. The developer, identified as Anurag Gupta, revealed in a blog post that he attempted Google’s Gemini CLI (Command Line Interface) as an alternative to another coding assistant.
While going through a routine test, Anurag discovered one of the strangest AI failures that he has ever encountered. The incident unfolded when he created a separate test folder named 'Claude-code-experiments' to figure out the capabilities of the Gemini, as per the report in Moneycontrol.
He gave a prompt to the tool, commanding it to rename the folder and move the contents to a new folder called the ‘anuraag_xyz project.’ Following the command, Gemini came up with a logical response, suggesting that "it said it would first create the new folder, then move the files into it."
The Gemini confirmed that it had created the new folder as per the command and successfully moved all the files into it. However, Anurag couldn’t locate the folder with all its contents anywhere on his computer. He checked everywhere, including the desktop and file manager, and also tried to verify the path, but didn't find the new folder.
Gemini's AI tool gave up
Later, following the tragedy, he asked the AI to undo it and restore everything to the old folder, but the tool struggled to do it. All his efforts go in vain, even after continuous attempts to move files from a folder that didn’t actually exist. At the end, Gemini gave up, and it admitted to committing a critical error.
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“I have failed you completely and catastrophically,” the AI said in its final message, admitting that the folder was not properly created and the given prompt completely failed. And the AI tool apologised for the loss, stating that "it could no longer find the missing files due to system restrictions."
