Google recently announced the launch of
AI Overviews in Search
in the US. Some users reported the feature is providing inaccurate and strange responses to their queries. In response, Google stated they are taking immediate steps to remove
AI Overviews
for certain search queries.
“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 spokesperson Meghann Farnsworth
told The Verge.
She also said that the company is “taking swift action” to remove AI Overviews on certain queries “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.”
What answers did AI Overviews provide
A user claimed that when he asked for a solution to make the cheese stick to pizza, AI Overviews suggested that the user should use non-toxic glue.
“Add some glue. Mix about 1/8 cup of Elmer’s glue in with the sauce. Non-toxic glue will work,”
Google AI Overviews
.
In another such incident, AI Overviews replied that users should “eat at least one small rock per day. They say that rocks are a vital source of minerals and vitamins that are important for digestive health” when asked “How many rocks should I eat”.
Reportedly, when asked how many Muslim presidents the US has had, the AI Overview feature responded by saying, “The United States has had one Muslim president, Barack Hussein Obama.”
AI Overviews is experiment
Google has repeatedly pointed out that the technology is in the early phase of evolution and the responses given by it will not be perfect. The company even provides a disclaimer label saying that “Generative AI is experimental”.
Previously, Google also said that it will fine tune the responses based on user feedback. One such example is the image-generating feature in Gemini, which was pulled after it produced historically incorrect images in some cases.
