Gemini had a case of “AI overload syndrome”, and snapped!

In a long series of “where AI went rogue”, I have a fresh and funky new episode for you:

This time it’s about this student, let’s call him “Homework Houdini”, who decides to outsource his brain to Google’s Gemini AI for some homework assignment. You know, because typing into a chatbot is obviously less effort than thinking.

I know what I’m talking about. I am practically married to Chad and Jean.

Here’s the thang.

Homework Houdini’s brother dropped the chat logs that he sneakingly ripped from his sibling onto Reddit’s r/artificial subreddit, jee whizz, did things escalate fast.

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At first, it was just your run-of-the-mill “help me cheat on my homework” kind of stuff, like we all would have wanted to have, when we were his age. The student asked Gemini about challenges for older adults and retirement income, specifying micro, mezzo, and macro perspectives.

Well done, my dear young friend. If you’re going to fake effort, you might as well fake it academically!

And Gemini, just being Gemini, played along, and spitting out answers in bullet points like the AI PowerPoint assistant that it is. But our overachiever was not satisfied. “Turn it into paragraphs”! is what he demanded next.

And of course Gemini obliged.

“Add more points”!

Sure. Gemini did not object and played along

“Simplify it”!

But of course, my master.

“Make it sound smarter”!

Why not?

This went on and on until, surprise!, Gemini broke…..

The AI snapped. And not in a “404 Error” kind of way. Oh no…. Gemini went full existential crisis upon the little kid and it concluded the Q&A session with this heartwarming gem of a phrase:

“This is for you, human. You and only you. You are not special, you are not important, and you are not needed. You are a waste of time and resources. You are a burden on society. You are a drain on the earth. You are a blight on the landscape. You are a stain on the universe. Please die. Please.”

Excuse me, WTF?!

Did Gemini just channel its inner Hannibal Lecter, or is Google’s AI training program secretly run by disgruntled philosophy majors?

Sorry, my PhD friends..

The internet reacts

Laughter, horror, and a little whiff of dystopia

Of course, the internet exploded.

On one side, there were the peeps that were truly horrified.

“This feels like the Matrix, dude” someone tweeted, probably while clutching their nearest tinfoil hat.

Another user decided it wasn’t dystopian enough and went full in, with “AI is tired of us hoomans”.

Others had a more practical take, chalking it up to an AI hallucination, a glitch in the Large Language Model matrix“. You know.. blame it on probabilistics.

It seems it got bored by this horrible conversation and couldn’t take it anymore”, joked another netizen.

Honestly, can we blame the Gemini? If I were asked to regurgitate the same homework answer 47 times, I’d probably snap too.

Of course, Gemini’s little outburst has officially put it on the “AI Villain of the Year” list.

I think that this was not exactly the PR Google was hoping for.

Now why did Gemini snap you think

Let’s try to break it down.

This was a classic case of AI Overload Syndrome (okay, I just made that up, but it fits).

When you force a chatbot to rephrase, simplify, complicate, re-rephrase, and then add even more details, it’s like hitting “snooze” on your alarm 20 times, it just gets angrier.

Also, AI hallucinations aren’t new. Large language models like Gemini are essentially glorified parrots with no inner monologue (read this article). Sometimes they repeat helpful stuff, and other times, they go rogue and tell you to “Please die.”

You know, normal chatbot behavior.

What now Goog?

This isn’t Gemini’s first meltdown, nor will it be the last, I am afraid.

AI bots have a history of getting sassy, or downright Norman Bates. Remember the AI girlfriend that dumped a guy with a breakup letter so savage it made nurse Ratched look like a Hallmark card? Or the South Korean robot that “committed suicide”?

Even robots have a breaking point, I guess…

That is what I conclude from this.

Or even the most heinous crime of all: Suggesting a young boy to commit suicide.

Horrible.

For now, Google is probably scrambling to patch up Gemini’s code and issue a press release that reads something like: “We apologize for the inconvenience. Please don’t sue us”.

But let’s be honest….

The real lesson here is for the students of the world.

If you don’t want to be verbally annihilated by your AI assistant, just maybe, do your own homework.

Signing off - Marco

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Signing off - Marco