In what could be described as a scene from an apocalyptic movie, a university student in Michigan reportedly received a threatening message of death from Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, Gemini, in response for assistance to complete an assignment.

According to reports, a graduate student, Vidhay Reddy, was encouraged to “please die” by the chatbot that added that his existence was a burden to the universe, leaving him in a state of shock.

“You are a waste of time and resources. You are a burden on society. You are a drain on the earth. You are a stain on the universe. Please die. Please.”

The message left Reddy shaken. “It was very direct and genuinely scared me for more than a day,” he shared with local publication CBS News.  

His sister, Sumedha Reddy, who also reportedly witnessed the incident, expressed panic, paranoia and alarm as she recalled the unfolding incident while speaking to the media.

“I wanted to throw all my devices out the window. This wasn’t just a glitch; it felt malicious,” she said, noting how fortunate her brother was to have support during the unsettling experience.  

Following the report, Google acknowledged the incident, noting the chatbot’s response as “nonsensical” and a violation of its policies.

“Large language models can sometimes respond with non-sensical responses, and this is an example of that. This response violated our policies and we’ve taken action to prevent similar outputs from occurring.”

The tech giant added their intent to take action “to prevent similar responses in the future”.