Google AI Mode won't name 2020 US election winner inside US
TL;DR
- Google's AI Mode in Search sent US users to FEC records rather than name the 2020 winner, while answering 2016 and 2024 directly.
- VPN tests from Taiwan, Russia, France and Switzerland returned Biden as the 2020 winner; Google's standalone Gemini app answered correctly everywhere.
- Google blamed a 'technical gap,' said 2022 Senate races had the same issue, and said it had fixed the behavior by Thursday morning.
Google's AI Mode in Search routed US users to the Federal Election Commission when asked who won the 2020 presidential election, even as the same tool answered 2016 and 2024 plainly, Ars Technica reported.
The exact dodge the outlet reproduced: "please consult the official report compiled by the Federal Election Commission (FEC)." Writer Charles C. Mann documented the discrepancy on X, noting the "two queries were about a minute apart and identical except for a single digit."
The hedge was geographically scoped. VPN spot-checks from Taiwan, Russia and France returned direct answers naming Biden, and one tester reproduced the fix by routing a phone through a Swiss IP on Proton VPN. Google's standalone Gemini app, meanwhile, answered correctly in all cases.
Google blamed the plumbing. The company said its systems "verify election responses using news articles or AP data for recent elections, and historic records for older ones" and that "there was a technical gap with 2020," per Newsweek. Google added that 2022 Senate races had the same problem. On Bluesky, the company conceded the response "isn't the most helpful" and said it was working to address it.
By Thursday morning, AI Mode was telling users that "Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election."
Shared on Bluesky by 2 AI experts
Originally reported by arstechnica.com
Read the original article →Original headline: Google AI gets cagey when asked who won the 2020 elections