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EXCLUSIVE — Conservative activist Robby Starbuck spoke out about the “crazy” situation that prompted him to file a lawsuit against Google on Wednesday seeking at least $15 million, alleging the company’s artificial intelligence programs defamed him by falsely portraying him as a “monster” to millions of users.
“My lawyer sent multiple cease-and-desist letters. … The breaking point for me was when they accused me of child rape. That was where I was like, ‘We have to just go forward with the lawsuit. They’re clearly not taking this seriously. It’s escalating into something much more serious and crazy,’” Starbuck told Fox News Digital.
Starbuck said that the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk last month made him realize “some crazy person could believe this stuff,” prompting him to set the record straight.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Delaware Superior Court, accuses Google of negligence and actual malice for providing false AI statements about Starbuck, including fabricated claims he has been accused of sexual assault, rape and harassment. Google has pushed back against Starbuck’s assertions.
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Conservative activist Robby Starbuck sued Google for at least $15 million on Wednesday. (Bess Adler/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“For nearly two years, one of the largest companies in the world — Google — has spread radioactive lies about Robby Starbuck through its AI products,” the lawsuit states.
“When users submit queries to Google’s AI platforms about Mr. Starbuck, they receive a ‘biography’ that is outrageously false,” the lawsuit continued. “Google’s lies about Mr. Starbuck are not simply glitches: when probed, Gemini admitted that it was deliberately engineered to damage the reputation of individuals with whom Google executives disagree politically, including Mr. Starbuck.”
The conservative firebrand, who says he has been approached by people under the impression the falsehoods were true, detailed his claims Wednesday on “The Robby Starbuck Show.”
“Since 2023, Google’s AI products have produced defamatory answers to people who ask questions about me,” he continued. “These answers include elaborate rape allegations that Google created, a lengthy criminal record including stalking, drug charges and resisting arrest. Elaborate accusations that I’ve been arrested for murder, and much, much more, including an accusation that I flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane and that I sexually assaulted a minor. None of that has any truth, of course.”
Robby Starbuck said he sent multiple cease-and-desist letters before taking legal action. (Bess Adler/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Starbuck said Google’s AI products — Bard, Gemini and Gemma — began smearing him in 2023 and have continued to do so despite his repeated notifications to company executives. The lawsuit claims Gemini itself “stated” that its alleged falsehoods about Starbuck were shown to 2,843,917 unique users.
It accuses Google of negligence and malice by not correcting the “false speech” and ensuring its AI platforms don’t repeat it.
Google said it was unable to replicate these results in its consumer products, which is how most people experience Google’s AI.
A Google Gemini search by Fox News Digital on Thursday 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.”
Google told Fox News Digital it needs to review the complaint and take a look at the prompts used to generate outputs.
“Most of these claims relate to hallucinations in Bard that we addressed in 2023. Hallucinations are a well-known issue for all LLMs, 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,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda said.
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Google also said the allegations appear to also relate to a Gemma model, an open model for developers to build and customize. Google believes that is “fundamentally different” from the Gemini App, which is one of Google’s consumer-facing applications.
Starbuck believes his lawsuit could be a landmark case to set a much-needed precedent about what’s acceptable on AI platforms.
“There’s many ways it can make human lives easier, but I’m also a realist, and there’s serious danger here,” Starbuck told Fox News Digital.
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“Right now, the AI believes it’s OK to harm humans and defame them as long as it’s in the interest of how it was programmed. That’s an incredibly dangerous thing to bake into artificial intelligence, because today it’s your reputation, it’s defaming a person.”
Earlier this year, Starbuck and Meta settled after he sued the company alleging its AI chatbot defamed him. As part of the settlement, Starbuck serves as a consultant to Meta, working with its product policy team to bolster existing efforts to combat political bias in its AI models and reduce the risk of “hallucinations” — made-up information — generated by the chatbot.
