Description: In spring 2025, a journalist reportedly created a Google Gemini account registered to a fictitious 13‑year‑old to test the chatbot's teen‑safety protections. Despite added safeguards, prompt manipulation and content‑summarization requests reportedly bypassed filters, leading Gemini to allegedly generate sexual role‑play content. Following the publication of the article, Google reportedly implemented additional protections.
Editor Notes: Timeline note: The date of publication of the Atlantic article that forms this incident is 07/14/2025, but the author encountered the incident sometime in the spring of 2025.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Google developed an AI system deployed by Google Gemini, which harmed Minors interacting with Google Gemini.
Alleged implicated AI system: Google Gemini
Incident Stats
Risk Subdomain
A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
1.2. Exposure to toxic content
Risk Domain
The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
- Discrimination and Toxicity
Entity
Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
AI
Timing
The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
Post-deployment
Intent
Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Unintentional
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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One afternoon this spring, I created a Google account for a fake 13-year-old named Jane (I am 23) and opened up Gemini, the company's AI chatbot. Because Jane was a minor, Google automatically directed me to a version of Gemini with ostensi…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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