Image source, Getty Images
- author, Liv McMahon
- role, Technology reporter
Google's new artificial intelligence (AI) search feature has faced criticism for providing shaky and inaccurate answers.
The company's experimental “AI Overview” tool told some users looking for a way to better stick cheese to pizza that they could use a “non-toxic glue.”
The search engine's AI-generated answer said that geologists recommend that humans eat one rock a day.
A Google spokesman told the BBC that these were “isolated instances”.
Some of the answers appear to be based on Reddit comments and articles from satire site The Onion.
However, Google maintained that the feature was mostly working fine.
“The examples we saw were generally highly unusual queries and not representative of most people's experiences,” the company said in a statement.
“Most of the AI overviews provide high-quality information with links to dig deeper on the web.”
The company said it takes action when it finds “violations of policies” and uses them to improve its systems.
This is not the first time the company has run into problems with its AI-powered products.
In February, the company was forced to suspend its chatbot, Gemini, which had been criticized for its “woke” responses.
It uses AI to provide summaries of search results so users don’t have to scroll through long lists of websites to find what they’re looking for.
However, Google Search remains the go-to search engine for many people, so it is likely to be widely used and trusted.
According to web traffic tracker Statcounter, Google's search engine commands more than 90% of the global market.
It remains a vital source of revenue for Google and a service the company needs to protect and future-proof.
Why comb through search engine results and pages of ads looking for information if a chatbot can provide a single, clear answer?
But this only works if you can trust it.
The so-called hallucinations caused by generative AI tools are not unique to Google, but as the world's largest search engine, it will face increased scrutiny.
In one puzzling example, a reporter who Googled whether gasoline could be used to cook spaghetti faster received the answer “You can't… but you can use gasoline to make spicy spaghetti,” along with a recipe.
We don't know how many of these searches were correct (because sharing them on social media wouldn't be any fun), but AI search clearly needs to be able to handle any search, even the most outlandish.
Rivals have faced similar backlash over their attempts to pack more AI tools into consumer products.
