Can't get away by simply saying sorry: Govt

New Delhi: Union IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said big platforms should not release any "untested platform without any disclosures or disclaimers" following Google's Gemini AI chatbot row. He said, “There will be consequences because platforms like Google are significant powers on the internet and for them to do something wrong and then simply say, 'I'm sorry' or 'I apologise' is certainly not what the law expects them to do.”

“Why is there a belief amongst these big platforms that they can take something from the lab... and launch it without guardrails or protective framework. This is unconscionable and unacceptable... given not just the law but even a sense of responsibility and discipline,” the minister said.

Asserting government's "sincere (and) serious responsibility" to internet users in India, Chandrasekhar said that tech companies could not "get away by talking their way out of a problem".

Citing new IT Rules, the minister said that tech companies "should not allow their platforms to be used in a manner that outputs unlawful content or violates the law of the land".

"I think it is not so much for the government to prosecute as much as the users who have the cause of action... who are prejudiced by a platform that spews out unlawful content," he said, adding, "I have heard... there are many people who are quite agitated by the conduct of this and other platforms. My response to them is, 'the government may, or may not, do some things because we have limited powers under the law... it is for individuals, or groups, to hold them to account."

This comes as Google said that Gemini "may not always be reliable in responding to certain prompts related to current events and political topics" amid controversy that the AI model's text and image responses were “biased”. The company said, "We're aware Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions... we are working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately. Gemini's AI image generation does generate a wide range of people. And that's generally a good thing because people around the world use it. But it's missing the mark here."