Google defends AI search results that told us to put glue on pizza

Last week, Google introduced its AI search results to millions of users. The goal was to provide a better search experience. Instead, the AI All kinds of weird resultslike saying people should put glue on their pizza to make the cheese stick, Eat stones,

now one Company blog posts In a report published Thursday by Google search head Liz Read, the tech giant blamed a “data void” for the inaccurate results, as well as people creating weird queries, and doubled down on claims that AI results are leading to “higher satisfaction” with search. Read argues that AI overviews are not generally “confusing”; they sometimes misinterpret what already exists on the web.

“With millions of people using this feature, there are many new searches, far more than that,” she writes. “We’ve also seen nonsensical new searches that appear to be intended to return false results.” She also correctly notes that “a very large number of fake screenshots” of the AI ​​overview are spreading online.

First, I would like to point out that “Which mammal has the most bones?” is a fair question if you spend some time with a curious child. Second, Google involved millions of people in this feature, which resulted in a lot of criticism and even articles about which mammal has the most bones? How to improve how to disable it,

Reed’s blog also details how Google is improving AI by limiting overviews when they appear for “absurd” questions and sarcasm. This is good to address because many people were surprised that the famous satirical website Onion And a Reddit user named “Fakesmith” wasn’t filtered out of the AI ​​results in the first place.

A portion of Reed’s blog also compares AI Overview to another long-standing search feature called Featured Snippet, which highlights information from a relevant webpage without using generative AI. According to Reed, the “accuracy rate” for Featured Snippet is “on par” with AI Overview.

If Google wants to compete, it has to move fast. But it also has to keep user trust. It may be hard to regain it after AI oversights have made us all eat Elmer’s Glue.