{"id":668351,"date":"2026-10-29T00:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T00:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/668351\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T00:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T00:58:16","slug":"google-ai-gets-cagey-when-asked-who-won-the-2020-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/668351\/","title":{"rendered":"Google AI gets cagey when asked who won the 2020 elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The oddities continued when I tested some other political history questions in Google\u2019s AI Mode. When asked which party controlled the Senate after the 2020 elections, for instance, Google\u2019s AI Mode told me to \u201ccheck official congressional records\u201d and linked me to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.senate.gov\/history\/partydiv.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">US Senate Party Division history page<\/a>. When asked the same question for 1992 election, though, AI Mode simply told me straight out that it led to Democrats holding a 57 to 43 majority in the Senate, including Wikipedia among its references.<\/p>\n<p>            <a class=\"cursor-zoom-in\" data-pswp-width=\"686\" data-pswp-height=\"779\" data-cropped=\"false\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/aimodesenate.png\" target=\"_blank\" data-pswp-><br \/>\n              <img width=\"686\" height=\"779\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/aimodesenate.png\" class=\"fullwidth full\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  \/><br \/>\n            <\/a><\/p>\n<p>              Did AI Mode suffer a concussion somewhere between 1992 and 2020?<\/p>\n<p>\n                  Credit:<br \/>\n                                      Google \/ Kyle Orland\n                                  <\/p>\n<p>\n      Did AI Mode suffer a concussion somewhere between 1992 and 2020?<\/p>\n<p>          Credit:<\/p>\n<p>          Google \/ Kyle Orland<\/p>\n<p>Separate from Google\u2019s AI Mode, the company\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/gemini.google.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">own Gemini model<\/a> seems perfectly capable of telling me who won recent presidential elections. The same goes for other major chatbots like OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT, Anthropic\u2019s Claude, and even <a href=\"https:\/\/america.gov\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the government-run AI model at America.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Why so cautious?<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps tellingly, Google AI Mode\u2019s issues with providing direct answers on presidential results seemed to disappear when accessing Google\u2019s AI Mode in foreign countries. Spot checks via VPN of AI Mode results accessed from Taiwan, Russia, France, and Canada all got accurate and straightforward answers to multiple questions about recent US election results.<\/p>\n<p>Google\u2019s AI Mode also seems to grow more accommodating when the same political questions are asked a second time. After repeating questions about presidential results, AI Mode actually told me the winner for all three elections where it had previously only provided outside links, citing <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/civic-information\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google Civics data<\/a> in the latter response.<\/p>\n<p>When asked why it didn\u2019t provide that kind of immediate answer the first time, Google\u2019s AI Mode blamed \u201csafety filters for recent and highly sensitive election topics [that] are very strict.\u201d For recent elections or those involving active political figures, AI Mode says its \u201csystem is heavily automated to direct users directly to official, certified government databases\u2014like the Federal Election Commission\u2014to prevent any risk of displaying unverified data or misinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The oddities continued when I tested some other political history questions in Google\u2019s AI Mode. When asked which&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-668351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}