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Incident 1164: Google Healthcare AI Model Med‑Gemini Allegedly Produces Non‑Existent 'Basilar Ganglia' Term in Published Output

Description: Google’s Med‑Gemini healthcare AI reportedly produced the non‑existent term "basilar ganglia" in public launch materials, conflating two distinct brain structures. The error reportedly appeared in both a blog post and an arXiv preprint. Google is reported to have initially edited the blog without acknowledgment, later calling it a typo.
Editor Notes: Timeline note: The arXiv preprint (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.03162), which reportedly contains the error, is dated 05/06/2024; this date is used for the formal incident ID. Reporting by The Verge was published on 08/04/2025.

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Alleged: Google , Google Med‑Gemini and arXiv developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Healthcare professionals relying on AI‑generated diagnostic content , Patients whose care could be affected by undetected AI hallucinations and Medical research community citing or using erroneous AI outputs.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Google Med‑Gemini and arXiv

Incident Stats

Incident ID
1164
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2024-05-06
Editors
Daniel Atherton

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Incident OccurrenceGoogle’s healthcare AI made up a body part — what happens when doctors don’t notice?
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Google’s healthcare AI made up a body part — what happens when doctors don’t notice?

Google’s healthcare AI made up a body part — what happens when doctors don’t notice?

theverge.com

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Google’s healthcare AI made up a body part — what happens when doctors don’t notice?
theverge.com · 2025

Scenario: A radiologist is looking at your brain scan and flags an abnormality in the basal ganglia. It's an area of the brain that helps you with motor control, learning, and emotional processing. The name sounds a bit like another part of…

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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