It looks like Google’s latest attempt to make people’s lives easier with artificial intelligence (AI) is failing.
The tech giant’s new ‘AI Overviews’ tool provides users with AI-powered summaries of search results across Chrome, Firefox and Google’s app browser.
But since it went live this month, people have noticed that it is returning incorrect statements and suggestions – many of which are dangerous.
Among them, they claim you can ‘use petrol to make a spicy spaghetti dish’, eat rocks and stick pizza.
In response to a search for “cheese doesn’t stick to pizza,” Google suggests adding a “non-toxic glue” to the sauce to make it stickier.
According to the Verge , this answer originally came from a joke comment on Reddit over a decade ago.
Another user who searched for “How many rocks should I eat” got the answer from a 2021 article by the satirical website The Onion.
AI Overviews says: ‘According to UC Berkeley geologists, you should eat at least one small rock a day.’
It continued: “The stones are said to be a vital source of minerals and vitamins that are important for digestive health.”
The Google tool also claimed that a dog played in the NBA, that astronauts met cats on the moon, and that former US President James Madison graduated from the University of Wisconsin 21 times.
Internet analyst Jeremiah Johnson on X posted a thread of even more bizarre responses, including that cockroaches can live in your penis without you noticing, doctors recommending smoking during pregnancy, and safely staring at the sun for 5 to 15 minutes.
Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said UNSW Sydney called it “a PR disaster for the search giant”.
As Professor Walsh explains, AI Insights is a type of “generative artificial intelligence” – the same technology that powers rival product ChatGPT – to provide summaries of search results derived from data on the web.
But generative AI tools don’t know what’s true and what’s not – only what’s popular (for example, the Onion’s article about eating rocks).
“Ask ‘how to keep bananas fresh longer’ and it will use AI to generate a useful summary of tips such as storing in a cool, dark place and fruits such as apples, among other things,” the academic wrote in The Conversation.
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“But ask a question out of left field and the results can be disastrous, or even dangerous.”
In an official statement, Google said it is “taking swift action when necessary” to make the tool’s responses more accurate.
“The vast majority of AI reports provide high-quality information with links to deeper web searches,” the spokesperson said.
“Many of the examples we saw were unusual queries, and we also saw examples that were falsified or that we couldn’t reproduce.
“We did extensive testing before launching this new experience, and as with other features we’ve launched in Search, we appreciate your feedback.
“We are taking swift action where appropriate within our content policies and using these examples to develop wider improvements to our systems, some of which have already begun to roll out.”
Google hopes AI Overviews is available to people in the US first, though more than 1 billion people worldwide will have access to it by the end of the year.
The company announced the feature in a blog post on May 14, saying it provides users with quick answers and helps those who need information in a hurry.
Like other tech companies, Google has focused on AI since the success of ChatGPT.
Last year, Google launched its own AI, Gemini, as a rival to ChatGPT, but the chatbot has been plagued by problems.
This culminated in Google suspending AI Gemini after it was accused of replacing white historical figures, including Nazi soldiers, with people of color.