Google has been accused of bias after its AI Overview blocked search results about Donald Trump’s cognitive health while allowing summaries for Joe Biden.
Google is facing scrutiny after reports suggested its AI Overview tool blocked search results on queries about Donald Trump’s mental fitness while providing summaries for similar searches about Joe Biden.
When The Independent searched “is Trump in cognitive decline,” the AI Overview displayed: “An AI Overview is not available for this search.” But entering the same query for Biden produced an AI-generated summary. Tech outlet The Verge first flagged the issue after receiving the same block on the query “does Trump show signs of dementia.”
When contacted, a Google spokesperson said: “Our systems automatically determine where an AI response will be useful, and it’s not always 100 percent consistent. 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.”
The controversy comes weeks after Google CEO Sundar Pichai praised Trump’s AI policies at a White House dinner, calling them “a great start” in positioning the U.S. as a global leader in artificial intelligence.
Trump has long dismissed questions about his mental acuity, once describing himself as a “stable genius” while insisting he “aced” cognitive tests.