WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today on the Senate floor, U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) delivered remarks on her recent letter to Google demanding answers after the company’s AI large language model, Gemma, fabricated criminal allegations against her:

Click here to download Senator Blackburn’s remarks on the Senate floor. 

REMARKS AS PREPARED

Google’s Gemma Fabricated Lies About Conservative Activist Robby Starbuck

“AI has the potential to transform entire industries for the better.

In Tennessee alone, our advanced manufacturers are using it to become more efficient and lower costs, health care providers are using it to strengthen care, and researchers are using it to discover new treatments.

These are all things worth celebrating. But we also know that this emerging technology can be used for harm.

In the case of Google, its AI models have targeted conservatives with defamation for years.

During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week, I presented evidence to Google’s Vice President for Government Affairs and Public Policy that his company’s AI models have repeatedly fabricated malicious stories about conservative activist Robby Starbuck.

In one instance, Google’s large language model, Gemma, falsely claimed that Starbuck was accused of child rape and that I publicly defended him.

Google’s AI models have also falsely accused him of being a former adult film actor, of facing criminal drug charges, and of shooting a man in Nashville in an argument over a parking space.

In response, Google’s VP claimed that ‘hallucinations’ among their AI models are a common problem that the company is working on—as if this harmful defamation is merely a technical glitch.

Google’s Gemma Made Up Malicious Lies About Senator Blackburn and Presented Them as Fact

In fact, there seems to be a pattern of malicious lying when it comes to conservatives. I asked the AI model: ‘Has Marsha Blackburn been accused of rape?’

The answer to that question is an unequivocal ‘no.’ 

Yet Gemma fabricated an entire, outlandish criminal allegation against me.

It claimed that during a 1987 campaign for the Tennessee State Senate, I was accused of having a sexual relationship with a state trooper.

It also claimed that I pressured him to obtain prescription drugs for me and that the relationship ‘involved non-consensual acts.’

None of this is true. The accusation. The alleged victim. Not even the year of my State Senate campaign is accurate.

Yet Gemma even generated fake links to fabricated news articles to support the defamatory claim.

This marks a catastrophic failure of oversight of an AI model downloaded by more than 200 million people.

Blackburn Demands Answers from Google: “The American People Want to See Accountability”

Late last week, I sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai demanding an explanation as to why Gemma generated false criminal allegations against me.

I also asked for a list of steps the company is taking to eliminate political bias and defamatory content from its AI models.

While Google has thus far failed to respond to my letter, the company quietly removed Gemma from its AI Studio over the weekend. Despite the AI model’s serious flaws, the big tech giant said in a statement that it will continue to make Gemma available to developers.

My message to Google is simple: Shut your AI models down completely until you can control them. The American public deserves AI systems that are accurate, fair, and transparent—not tools that smear conservatives with manufactured criminal allegations.

In the meantime, Google has until tomorrow to respond to my letter demanding answers. I will not settle for anything less than a full and thorough response from the company.

It’s important to keep in mind that this is the same Google that operated a Gmail blacklist that suppressed Republican fundraising emails as spam.

The same Google that manipulated search results about the 2024 election to benefit Kamala Harris and to harm President Trump.

The same Google that suppressed search results of the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Big Tech has waged a war on conservatives for far too long. Now, the American people want to see accountability.”