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This sounds like a bug, not some kind of coverup. Google makes mistakes and it's worth discussing issues like this, but calling this a "coverup" does a disservice to truly serious issues.

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I didn't mean to imply Google was covering anything up, but Gemini in this specific conversation clearly was.

imho the best you can say is that the "thinking" trace says it was. thinking tokens aren't infallible indications of what the model's doing

I agree, this screams bug to me. Reading the thought process definitely seems damning, but a bug still seems like the most likely explanation.

Remember that "thought process" is just a metaphor that we use to describe what's happening. Under the hood, the "thought process" is just a response from the LLM that isn't shown to the user. It's not where the LLM's "conscience" or "consciousness" lives; and it's just as much of a bullshit generator as the rest of the reply.

Strange, but I can't say that it's "damning" in any conventional sense of the word.

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