Google is paying Reddit $60 million a year to access its data. Deposit Photos Dogs playing for the NFL. Tips on replacing your car’s “blinker fluid.” Suggesting running with scissors to boost your immune system. These are only a few examples of what it’s like to use Google’s new AI Overview feature—and the first thing many people see when trying to use the world’s most popular search engine .
[Related: How to avoid AI in your Google searches .]
After years of ( potentially illegal ) industry dominance, Google’s name has become synonymous with “searching the internet.” But its increasingly controversial generative AI projects may rapidly erase that reputation—particularly the experimental “ AI Overview ” feature already available for many users. Pitched as a way to distill a wide cross-section of websites and already published ( often copyrighted ) content, AI Overview supposedly allows people to visit “a greater diversity of websites for help with more complex questions,” Google wrote in its new tool’s announcement earlier this month.
But while AI Overview may get many answers right—when it is wrong, it is apparently extremely wrong. The most viral example so far is Google’s suggestion earlier this week to thicken pizza sauce using “1/8 cup of Elmer’s glue,” prompting a steady flow of jokes . It now appears AI Overview harvested the (terrible) recipe hack from a decade-old joke on Reddit , leading some people to point out that training the large language model on Reddit posts was a mistake. (Which Google is now paying the forum website to do for $60 million a year). Source: X Source: Threads Source: X In a statement provided to the Verge and others, a Google spokesperson claimed ideas like slathering pizza in adhesive paste only appears for when searching “generally very uncommon queries, and aren’t representative of most people’s experiences” of using AI Overview. But setting aside the fact that Googling pizza sauce recipe tips isn’t “uncommon” at all , there is already an X account dedicated to highlighting potentially hundreds of “ Goog Enough ” AI Overview examples speaks to the ongoing issue.
Of […]
Get Creative with Cannabis: The Ultimate Guide to Painting and Pottery Workshops
Creative with Cannabis Cannabis and creativity go hand in hand—especially
