• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Google’s AI Overviews Is Returning Bizarre And Even Dangerous Results

May 24, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Google has launched AI Overviews. And it is not going too well. The feature was launched in the US last week and it will spread globally by the end of 2024, but results so far suggest that it is a mess. Users on social media were quick to point out the funny answers until several people started noting that there were also several concerning ones.

AI Overviews is an experimental tool. Once you enter a query, the search engines provide an AI-generated result. However, machine learning algorithms are not conscious. They are trained to recognize words and phrases in certain contexts, so when they are asked something, they create an answer that is expected to fit the query. Even if the AI has to make stuff up. Like creating fake legal cases for a lawyer.

Advertisement

Google’s AI Overviews gets the answers from real sites, but AI is not smart enough to recognize serious answers from satirical or comedic ones. So “news” sites like The Onion or social media platforms like Reddit are providing comedic fodder to the clueless AI.

ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.

When asked “How many rocks should I eat each day?” Overviews confidently says that according to UC Berkeley geologists you should eat at least one small rock per day. That’s from The Onion. Asked about how make cheese stick better to pizza, Overviews suggests edible glue. Yes, glue is use in advertisements to make the cheese look more stringy, but the claim actually comes from an 11-year-old post from redditor fucksmith. Please do not trust fucksmith on this.

Speaking to BBC News, a Google spokesperson stated the incidents were isolated. “The examples we’ve seen are generally very uncommon queries, and aren’t representative of most people’s experiences,” the statement said.

Advertisement

But things are a lot less funny than these examples might seem. The system is fostering misinformation. It claims that Barack Obama was the first Muslim president of the United States. Too bad that it’s not true – Obama is a protestant Christian. A Google search lists the “health benefits” of smoking as well as how running with scissors can be good for you. And how can we not appreciate the suggestion of drinking one’s own urine?

Given the shambolic results, there has been renewed interest in the question of what the point of AI is. Google claims that it “can take the legwork out of searching” – but if you need to make sure that what you get is accurate, you risk pushing misinformation onto people who do not know or have no time to check sources. And on top of that, AI has a significant carbon footprint. Microsoft, also pushing big on AI, has recently been reported to be failing its pledges to be carbon-negative because of AI.

ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.

A suggestion on how to clean a washing machine recommends using chlorine bleach and vinegar. The expanded answer states that you need to use them one after the other, but it should be screaming about not using them together. Mixing them creates chlorine gas, which is poisonous. 

Advertisement

And talking about poisonous, Google’s AI Gemini is not doing much better. It recently confused the destroying angel mushroom (Amanita bisporigera) for a white button mushroom. This is one of the most dangerous mushrooms in the world and it can destroy liver and kidney tissues.

“Doctor Google” has taken a new and dangerous form. But there’s comedy in the advice too, still thanks to satirical websites. AI Overviews will tell you that eating ass has health benefits, making you even less susceptible to the common cold and influenza. 

ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.

If you want to argue with science, you better do your own research. 

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. France’s Antin Infrastructure sets IPO price range at 20-24 euros
  2. Philippines to investigate 154 police over deadly drugs war
  3. Do You Actually Need To Wash A Washing Machine?
  4. SpaceX Reveals Spacesuit For First Commercial Spacewalk Taking Place This Summer

Source Link: Google's AI Overviews Is Returning Bizarre And Even Dangerous Results

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Hormone Therapy For Trans Women Shifts Dozens Of Proteins To Align With Their Gender Identity
  • People Are Not Reacting Well After Learning How Cranberries Are Grown
  • The World’s Newest Great Ape Is Also Its Rarest, With Fewer Than 800 Left In The Wild
  • IFLScience We Have Questions: Can Burying Scientists Alive In The Snow Help Us Protect Polar Bears?
  • Scientists Perplexed By 407-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Plant That Doesn’t Follow The Fibonacci Sequence
  • This Giant Goldfish Hybrid Weighs As Much As A 10-Year-Old – A Stark Warning About Dumping Pets
  • Scientists Gave Mice Neanderthal And Denisovan Genes. The Results Were Intriguing
  • 2024 Saw Higher Levels Of Carbon Dioxide In The Atmosphere Than Ever Before
  • Halloween Fireballs Will Grace Our Skies As The Taurid Meteor Showers Arrive
  • Newly Discovered Hunting Megastructures Suggest Pre-Bronze Age Societies More Sophisticated Than Previously Thought
  • What Is Spectroscopy And Why Is It So Important To Science?
  • Parkinson’s “Trigger” Seen For The First Time: Scientists Image The Toxic Molecules Inside The Human Brain
  • What Flying Animals Exist That Are Not Birds?
  • DNA Evidence Uncovers Surprising Origins Of Native Americans
  • Single Gene Swap “Transfers A Behavior” Between Two Species For The First Time
  • Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Has A Rare “Anti-Tail”, New Observations Confirm
  • Asteroid Apophis: Animation Shows Asteroid’s Nail-Biting Close Approach To Earth In 2029
  • Titan Breaks A Key Chemistry Rule: What That Means For Alien Life
  • Scientists Studied “Chicago Rat Hole” – They Have Bad News, The South Atlantic’s Magnetic Field Weak Spot Is Growing, And Much More This Week
  • Could This Be The Real Reason Humans Survived And Neanderthals Died Out?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version