Google explains AI search results that recommend using glue on pizza

Last week, Google rolled out artificial intelligence (AI) search results to millions of test users with the goal of improving the search experience. However, instead of providing useful information, the AI ​​came up with a series of strange results, such as advising people to apply glue on pizza to make the cheese stick or to eat ice.

Google quickly removed some of the inaccurate AI results, known as AI Overviews, but reputational damage and social media ridicule were widespread.

In a company blog post Thursday, Google search chief Liz Reid blamed “data flaws” for the inaccurate results, in addition to users raising questions strange. She affirmed that AI Overviews generally do not “illusion” information, but sometimes just misunderstand what is available on the web.

Reid admits having millions of new users with unique queries can pose challenges. She also said she noted meaningless searches, which appeared to be aimed at generating false results.

The point to note is “which mammal has the most bones?” is a reasonable question for curious young children. Second, Google automatically turning on the AI ​​Overviews feature for millions of users has caused a lot of backlash, even leading to tutorials on how to turn off the feature.

Reid’s blog post also explains how Google is tackling AI Overviews by limiting them to meaningless and sarcastic queries. This was necessary because many were surprised that popular satire website The Onion and Reddit user “fucksmith” were not filtered out of the AI ​​results.

Part of Reid’s post compares AI Overviews to another long-standing search feature called featured snippets, which extracts information from relevant web pages without using AI. According to Reid, the “accuracy rate” of featured snippets is comparable to AI Overviews.

Ultimately, Google’s introduction of AI Overviews was another PR mistake for the company. Meanwhile, Google is racing to compete with OpenAI and AI search startups like Perplexity, which is said to be worth $3 billion.

To compete, Google needs to act quickly. But they also need to regain users’ trust, which could be difficult after AI Overviews advised people to eat Elmer’s glue.