Searching on Google, the world's largest search engine with more than 90% of the global market, looks a little different now. Instead of a page of links to other pages, Google automatically generates a summary at the top of the page, citing a handful of selected websites.
Changes were announced last week, with Google launching AI summaries towards her 250 million-plus US monthly users. But now, some users are reporting that the new technology is getting important information wrong.
Although Google said While early testers were more satisfied with the AI summary search results, a wider audience has already noticed inaccuracies or hallucinations with the feature.
When a user X typed in a search query “cheese doesn't stick on pizza”, Google's AI Compilation replied, “You can also add about ⅛ cup of non-toxic glue to the sauce to give it more stickiness.”
https://t.co/W09ssjvOkJ pic.twitter.com/6ALCbz6EjK
— SG-r01 (@heavenrend) May 22, 2024
Google's source for the answer appears to be a Reddit post written 11 years ago.
COMMENTARY
from the discussion
INPizza
“This example is funny, but there may be dangerous ones that are not so obvious,” X user wrote who noted the issue.
Google signed an agreement with Reddit in February to train its AI. OpenAI signed a similar agreements with Reddit earlier this month.
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AI researcher based in Seattle Dr. Margaret Mitchell also noted two AI hallucinations in X on Wednesday.
of First showed that Elon Musk went to UC Berkeley. At the time of writing, the error appears to have been corrected.
The second showed that President Andrew Jackson, who died in 1845graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2005.
President Andrew Johnson, who never went to school and taught himself how to read, earned 14 degrees from UW-Madison, according to the AI summary.
Meanwhile, on Google Search.
Andrew Johnson killed it, I never knew. pic.twitter.com/IV2zCmI6Zv— MMitchell (@mmitchell_ai) May 22, 2024
The entrepreneur verified that the second error was still present at the time of writing.
Incorrect on many counts. Credit: Entrepreneur
Google's AI appears to have been sourced from a 2016 UW-Madison alumni association ITEM showing the graduation years of presidential graduates names.
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The mistakes illustrate how AI can fail to pick up on nuances in training data and potentially amplify misinformation, especially when integrated into a widely used platform like Google.
Anastasia Kotsiubynska, Head of SEO at SE Ranking, predicted hallucinations in a joint remark with The entrepreneur last week.
“Most likely, there will still be misleading information in search results and hallucinations, and many users will probably use this information without double-checking,” Kotsiubynska said at the time.
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Google may begin testing ads within AI summaries “soon,” the company said announced Tuesday, adding another layer to its new AI search experience.