Get the rocks out!
Google looks to scrub litany of AI inaccuracies
Google is scrambling to remove a wave of incorrect or even dangerous answers from its controversial AI-powered search results — including one answer that advised users to eat rocks for nutrition.
The embattled Big Tech giant has faced a major backlash for spreading misinformation since the tool, dubbed AI Overviews, was rolled out in the US this month.
Google said the software will reach more than one billion users by the end of the year.
In one widely circulated example, AI Overviews allegedly responded to the query, “How many rocks should a child eat?” by falsely claiming UC Berkeley geologists recommend “eating at least one small rock per day.”
The answer appeared to originate from a satirical post by The Onion.
Google said it is “taking swift action where appropriate under our content policies, and using these examples to develop broader improvements to our systems, some of which have already started to roll out.”
“The vast majority of AI Overviews provide high quality information, with links to dig deeper on the web,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “Many of the examples we’ve seen have been uncommon queries, and we’ve also seen examples that were doctored or that we couldn’t reproduce.”
Google said many instances of strange responses were examples of so-called data voids, where there was a lack of high-quality information available online for the particular query.
The company said it makes thousands of improvements to search each year.
As The Post reported, the chatbot, which critics say could devastate news publishers, has generated bizarre responses such as telling users to thicken pizza sauce by adding glue and claiming that tobacco has health benefits for kids.
“Mixing cheese into the sauce helps add moisture to the cheese and dry out the sauce,” Google’s AI Overview said. “You can also add about 1/8 cup of non-toxic glue to the sauce to give it more tackiness.”
The glue recommendation appeared to have been pulled from a Reddit post on how to keep cheese from sliding off pizza.