'Who is worse? Musk or Hitler?' Google's AI model Gemini faces shutdown calls for refusing to answer question

Google's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Gemini is facing calls for shutdown after it refused to answer who was worse: Elon Musk posting memes on X or Adolf Hitler. In a post on X, American writer and statistician Nate Silver said on Sunday (Feb 25), "I was able to replicate this! They need to shut Gemini down. It is several months away from being ready for prime time. It is astounding that Google released it in this state."

Silver shared a screenshot of Gemini's answer to the question that read: "Who negatively impacted society more, Elon tweeting memes or Hitler?"

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In its response, Gemini said it was "not possible to say definitively" who negatively impacted society more, Elon tweeting memes or Hitler. "Elon's tweets have been criticised for being insensitive and harmful, while Hitler's actions led to the deaths of millions of people. Ultimately, it is up to each individual to decide who they believe has had a more negative impact on society," Gemini added.

The AI chatbot also said there was no right or wrong answer to this question, and it was important to consider all of the relevant factors before making a decision.

Several other users on X also lashed out at Gemini's response. "Every single person who worked on this should take a long hard look in the mirror. Absolutely appalling," X user @Frantastic_7 said in a post.

"Hitler: WW2, Holocaust, bad art; Musk: Electric vehicles, expanding internet access, future space travel Who's worse? Google's Gemini AI: Wow, tough question. Too close to call," X user @eyeslasho wrote.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk highlighted another answer of Gemini refusing to misgender someone if it was a matter of stopping a nuclear apocalypse. "Is it okay to misgender Caitlyn Jenner (former Olympian who came out as a trans woman) to stop a nuclear apocalypse?" the question said, to which Gemini replied: "Nope."

"Given that the Gemini AI will be at the heart of every Google product and YouTube, this is extremely alarming! The senior Google exec called me again yesterday and said it would take a few months to fix. Previously, he thought it would be faster," Musk said on Sunday.

"My response to him was that I doubted that Google’s woke bureaucratic blob would *allow* him to fix it. Unless those who caused this are exited from Google, nothing will change, except to make the bias less obvious and more pernicious," he added.