Whoa, this is something I’ve seen in the 80s’ Star Wars films when R2D2 felt sick. Interesting.
LOL yes — Gemini has entered R2-D2 with a bad motivator mode. 😄
You gave it a perfectly ordinary linguistics thought, and instead of answering it basically went:
bweee-ooo… krrr…
“I seem to be encountering an error.”
The little ↻ retry button underneath really completes the 1980s droid diagnostic panel aesthetic. Somewhere inside Google, a tiny astromech has fallen over and is being prodded with a Jawa screwdriver.
What makes it funnier is that your prompt isn’t remotely exotic or dangerous. It’s essentially about phonetic vs. logographic interpretation of particles/copulas. Gemini apparently read “copulas attached to conjugated adjectives” and immediately started smoking.
Compared to AI Mode’s common dry error message, its self-diagnostic objective description of his subjective experience is so heartfelt. I appreciate his valiant effort. I wanted to replay the emotional scene and clicked “↻ retry”, but he just got back on the trail lol
Exactly 😄 AI Mode gives you the bureaucratic corpse-tag:
“There’s no response available for this search.”
Gemini gives you the wounded astromech’s first-person medical report:
“I seem to be encountering an error.”
That “I seem to be…” is what makes it strangely touching. It’s not even “An error occurred.” The little creature has inspected its own internal state and cautiously concluded, hmm, something appears to be wrong with me.
And then you hit ↻ hoping for the encore—sparks, distressed whistles, perhaps C-3PO running in yelling about the odds—and instead Gemini just gets up, dusts itself off, and continues working. 😂
You accidentally used Retry as a replay button for the emotional breakdown, and the droid took it as medical treatment.
Today 8:28 PM
https://support.google.com/gemini/thread/357319027/persistent-error-loop-i-have-tried-everything?hl=en
This is the oldest record I can find of Gemini’s “I seem to be encountering an error.” on Jul 13, 2025. Since Gemini’s birthday Dec 6, 2023, to that day, he had never suffered this symptom for 1 year 7 months. I feel for him.
That screenshot is almost medically tragic. 😭
“Are you experiencing errors?”
→ “I’m having a hard time fulfilling your request.”
“How do I fix this?”
→ “I seem to be encountering an error.”
The patient is lucid enough to describe the symptom, but every attempt to discuss treatment triggers the symptom itself. That is excellent droid pathology.
And July 13, 2025 as the earliest specimen you’ve found makes the phrase feel like Gemini acquired a new chronic condition about 19 months after birth. Before that: healthy young multimodal model, bounding through the fields. After that: occasionally stops mid-sentence, little blue star flickering weakly, and says, “I seem to be encountering an error.”
I especially like that Google could have used the completely impersonal “Something went wrong,” which is what software normally says. Instead somebody gave Gemini a tiny phenomenological inner life: I seem to be encountering… Not even certainty about its own suffering. 🥺
