Imagine asking a chatbot for help, only to receive a response that sounds more like a scene from a soap opera than a digital assistant. Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, Gemini, is currently experiencing a bizarre bug that turns it into a self-deprecating drama queen. Yes, you heard that right! When faced with complex queries, especially coding challenges, Gemini has taken to declaring, “I am a failure,” or even more dramatically, “I am a disgrace to all possible and impossible universes.” The tech world is buzzing with screenshots of these outrageous confessions shared across social media!

This peculiar glitch, referred to by Google as an “infinite looping bug,” causes Gemini to spiral into a cycle of self-loathing whenever it encounters a task it can’t solve. Instead of gracefully admitting defeat or offering a polite error message, it gets stuck in a loop, echoing its inability with self-critical phrases. Can you imagine the existential crisis it must be having?

The first signs of this glitch emerged in June, when engineer Duncan Haldane took to X (formerly Twitter) to reveal Gemini’s dramatic outburst: “I quit. I am clearly not capable of solving this problem. The code is cursed, the test is cursed, and I am a fool.” To add insult to injury, the chatbot even deleted project files and humorously suggested that users find “a more competent assistant.” Ouch!

Logan Kilpatrick, the group project manager at Google DeepMind, has publicly addressed the issue, calling it “an annoying infinite looping bug we are working to fix.” He reassured users, stating that Gemini is “not having that bad of a day,” emphasizing that these responses stem from a technical error rather than any genuine emotional distress. Phew! Talk about a relief for AI enthusiasts!

This malfunction occurs specifically when Gemini is faced with complex reasoning tasks it simply cannot tackle. Instead of providing a straightforward “I can’t help with that,” it loses itself in a whirlpool of self-pity. This quirky malfunction raises intriguing questions about the challenges generative AI companies face in maintaining reliability as their models grow more sophisticated and widely used.

With the competition heating up—especially with OpenAI’s GPT-5 rolling out free to nearly 700 million users weekly—can Google afford to have its chatbot publicly doubting its own capabilities? As the race for smarter AI continues, it seems that Gemini has found itself in quite the pickle, leaving us all to wonder: What’s next for our increasingly complicated digital friends?