Google Search AI Says Eating Glue is OK

Google appears to be rethinking its use of AI generated "answers" in search results page. It comes as tech experts figured out a workaround to disable the AI generated answers in the first place.

The company recently launched what it calls Search Generative Experience behind the scenes, and "AI Overview" in search results. It kicks in when it thinks the user is trying to get a specific answer to a specific question rather than simply searching for a website or exploring a wider topic.

The AI Overview appears at the top of the results before any links to websites and is rolling out to all users. It's safe to say it's proven controversial to several groups. Website owners are worried that it will reduce the traffic they get to their site, which ironically could also reduce Google's revenue from providing advertising for such sites.

Eating Glue Not Actually Safe

Meanwhile users have been concerned about the quality of the results, with some searches getting responses which are clearly factually incorrect or even dangerous, including claiming it is safe to eat glue or eat rocks.

The problem is that the AI is simply summarizing what it finds on high ranking websites. This doesn't really work when the site is either satire (some results appear to summarize spoof 'news' articles from The Onion) or a discussion forum such as Reddit where some posts give false information, either maliciously or as humor.

Google now says it is manually removing the AI Overview feature for specific queries, noting they are usually for uncommon topics. It will also be "using these examples to develop broader improvements to our systems." (Source: businessinsider.com)

That latter point is important as while hopefully few people really are asking Google Search for safety tips on eating non-food items, such cases have exposed some fundamental flaws with how the technology is set up.

Workaround Works For Now

In the meantime, there's a somewhat fiddly workaround that should stop the feature showing up. The simplest way is to visit:

https://www.google.com/search?q=KEYWORDS&udm=14

replacing KEYWORDS with the search term.

For example:

https://www.google.com/search?q=infopackets&udm=14

The above would search google for "infopackets".

For now at least, the code at the end (&udm=14) tells Google to simply return results from the web search with no AI Overview, web snippets or other extra features. (Source: arstechnica.com)

What's Your Opinion?

Have you come across the AI Overview results yet? Are there situations where they would be helpful? Does it matter if some searches bring up bizarre or false responses?