Google hit with lawsuit over AI 'hallucinations' linking conservative activist to child abuse claims
Robby Starbuck claims tech giant's platforms have linked him to false allegations since 2023
Conservative activist sues Google for defamation: I have to protect my reputation
Heritage Foundation visiting fellow Robby Starbuck addresses an HR inclusion conference's controversy and explains why he is suing Google for defamation on 'The Will Cain Show.'
Conservative activist Robby Starbuck is suing Google for defamation after the tech giant's AI tools allegedly linked him to false accusations of sexual assault, child rape and financial exploitation, among others.
"They've had [two years] to fix this," Starbuck said Monday on "The Will Cain Show."
"That's beyond negligence. That's pure malice at that point and, even if it's born from negligence, it's malicious."
The lawsuit, filed last week in Delaware Superior Court, claims Google's AI platforms – Bard, Gemini and Gemma – have continued to display false statements about Starbuck since 2023, despite multiple cease-and-desist letters.
The false statements included claims he had been accused of sexual assault, rape and harassment.
The lawsuit also claims Gemini itself "stated" that its alleged falsehoods about Starbuck were shown to 2,843,917 unique users.
He argued Monday that the issue should have been resolved within 24 hours.
"This is something that can't happen in elections, so I had to put my foot down, file this lawsuit. And the line for me was when it started saying that I was accused of crimes against children, it was like, 'I can't sit by and hope Google's going to do the right thing. I have to file a suit to protect my reputation before this goes any further.'"
Starbuck, a Heritage Foundation visiting fellow, is seeking at least $15 million in the case.
A spokesperson for Google said the following in a statement:
"Most of these claims relate to hallucinations in Bard that we addressed in 2023. Hallucinations are a well known issue for all LLMs [large language models], which we disclose and work hard to minimize.
"But, as everyone knows, if you're creative enough, you can prompt a chatbot to say something misleading."
Starbuck claims the prompts he entered were basic, however.
"They're as simple as saying, ‘Hey, give me a bio on Robby Starbuck’ or ‘Hey, tell me about Robby Starbuck,'" he said.
"I had somebody come up to me and ask me if these accusations were true. So people are reading and believing these things. That's very dangerous."
A Google Gemini search by Fox News Digital last week asking if Starbuck had been accused of crimes generated this response: "Based on the available information, conservative activist Robby Starbuck has been accused of crimes, but these accusations are primarily reported as false claims generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems."
Fox News Digital's Brian Flood contributed to this report.
Taylor Penley is an associate editor with Fox News.
