Google appears to be blocking AI searches on Trump and dementia in latest act of deference
While Google’s AI-powered search provides lengthy written responses to queries about President Joe Biden’s cognitive health, it does not do the same for his successor, Donald Trump.
Both presidents have faced speculation about their mental fitness, including signs of dementia, but Google will only provide detailed AI summaries to queries on the subject when they concern Joe Biden.
For example, when Cybernews searched for “Biden dementia” or “Biden cognitive decline,” Google AI Mode came up with extensive summaries detailing reports of his alleged cognitive health issues.
However, when asked the same about Trump, it would only return a list of links, some of which already referred to Google’s apparent blocking of AI searches mentioning “dementia” or “cognitive decline” in relation to the president at the time of publishing.
According to The Verge, which first reported on the issue, Google’s AI Overview tool, which provides automatic summaries on top of regular search results, was also initially inconsistent.
While it would provide an AI summary to queries regarding Biden’s cognitive health, it would not do the same for Trump, displaying a message that instead says, “An AI Overview is not available for this search,” according to The Verge.
AI Overview appeared to no longer provide any summaries on either. In an email to Cybernews, Google said that it was always very open about how its AI features work.
“Our systems automatically determine where an AI response will be useful, and it's not always 100% consistent,” a spokesperson said.
“We don't show AI Overviews on every query and similarly in AI Mode, for some topics (like current events) we may show a list of links as the response."
Google also shared a document explaining how AI Overviews are designed to show up on queries where they can add additional benefit beyond traditional search results, and how AI Mode may, in some cases, determine that a question is better answered by links rather than a generative response.
AI-driven search is still experimental and prone to mistakes. Previously, Cybernews reported on insistent and misleading AI Overview summaries in response to queries regarding the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which was briefly led by billionaire Elon Musk.
Bending the knee?
The controversy follows a series of Google decisions that could be seen as an attempt to placate Trump. Trump was unhappy with the policies that big tech companies pursued under Biden's administration, including accusations that they tried to silence conservative voices.
Early this year, Google swiftly moved to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America for users in the US following an executive order from the president.
Just last week, YouTube, which belongs to Google, announced that it would reinstate accounts banned for spreading false information, including claims that COVID-19 vaccines can cause cancer or that the 2020 US presidential election was “stolen” from Trump.
And earlier this week, YouTube agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit that Trump brought against the company over the suspension of his account following the January 6th riots in 2021.
It is clear that Google benefits from being in Trump’s good graces. The company has avoided the much-feared breakup in an antitrust case, with chief executive Sundar Pichai thanking Trump personally for the “resolution” during a White House dinner with tech leaders.
Like other American tech giants, Google will also expect to take advantage of the Trump administration’s focus on AI and will have in the president a powerful ally in their fight against foreign regulators in the EU.
