SYDNEY, March 6 (Reuters) - Google has informed

Australian authorities it received more than 250 complaints

globally over nearly a year that its artificial intelligence

software was used to make deepfake terrorism material.

The Alphabet-owned tech giant also said it had

received dozens of user reports warning that its AI program,

Gemini, was being used to create child abuse material, according

to the Australian eSafety Commission.

Under Australian law, tech firms must supply the eSafety

Commission periodically with information about harm minimisation

efforts or risk fines. The reporting period covered April 2023

to February 2024.

Since OpenAI's ChatGPT exploded into the public

consciousness in late 2022, regulators around the world have

called for better guardrails so AI can't be used to enable

terrorism, fraud, deepfake pornography and other abuse.

The Australian eSafety Commission called Google's disclosure

"world-first insight" into how users may be exploiting the

technology to produce harmful and illegal content.

"This underscores how critical it is for companies

developing AI products to build in and test the efficacy of

safeguards to prevent this type of material from being

generated," eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a

statement.

In its report, Google said it received 258 user reports

about suspected AI-generated deepfake terrorist or violent

extremist content made using Gemini, and another 86 user reports

alleging AI-generated child exploitation or abuse material.

It did not say how many of the complaints it verified,

according to the regulator.

Google used hatch-matching - a system of automatically

matching newly-uploaded images with already-known images - to

identify and remove child abuse material made with Gemini.

But it did not use the same system to weed out terrorist or

violent extremist material generated with Gemini, the regulator

added.

The regulator has fined Telegram and Twitter, later renamed

X, for what it called shortcomings in their reports. X has lost

one appeal about its fine of A$610,500 ($382,000) but plans to

appeal again. Telegram also plans to challenge its fine.