Google Gemini Misattributes CS Lewis Quote to Screwtape Letters
Updated
Updated · Financial Times · Oct 7
Google Gemini Misattributes CS Lewis Quote to Screwtape Letters
1 articles · Updated · Financial Times · Oct 7
Summary
Google’s Gemini told the author a widely shared CS Lewis line about keeping “the radio on” came from The Screwtape Letters, but the quote was written about two decades later.
Jack Clark’s earlier onstage retelling had already wrongly claimed Lewis wrote about the telephone in the 1942 book, prompting NPR’s Planet Money to add a clarification to its recording.
The piece argues that generative AI, like the telephone, can both connect and mislead: it delivers fast, plausible research help while also producing confident factual errors.
That tension turns AI use into a practical test of verification, with the author warning that effortless summaries can reward laziness and replace deeper fact-checking.