Google Search AI Overviews is Suggesting Inaccurate, Dangerous Answers

Google Search's AI Overviews is currently under fire online as users keep receiving wildly inaccurate and even dangerous summaries from the AI-fueled search filter.

Both The Verge and Business Insider reported multiple instances of the AI providing incorrect suggestions from user inquiries, including instructions telling people to put Elmer's glue into their pizza.

One Overviews result even suggested that running while holding scissors "can improve your pores and give you strength."

Many users pointed out that some of the Overviews' results seem to be sourced from Reddit, albeit without the community feedback to verify whether such information is actually correct.

It can be remembered that Google recently secured a deal with the online forum board to use its content to train its new lines of AI models, including AI Overviews.

In response, a Google representative told BI that the search results are "extremely rare queries and aren't representative of most people's experiences," claiming most of AI Overviews' results are "high-quality information."

Google released AI Overviews on its search engine during last week's I/O convention where the tech giant also unveiled more AI-powered products for businesses and users.

How to Turn Off Google AI Overviews

Thankfully, Google AI Overviews are not enabled by default. As for users who tried to access the feature but find it disappointing, the feature can be disabled the same way it is switched on: through Search Labs.

Users can simply access Labs at the top right corner of their browser near the grid icon where all the other Google-owned apps are located.

The switch for the feature will be the first thing people see when they open Labs.

For mobile users, AI Overviews can be toggled off through the Labs Manage settings. Simply turn off the "AI Overviews and more" settings to disable the AI on search results.

Google AI Criticized Again for Dangerous 'Hallucinations'

The issue with the AI Overviews was not the first time nor it would likely be the last instance that Google's AIs have been criticized for generating factually inaccurate information.

Before AI Overviews, Google's chatbot Gemini AI was blasted earlier this year for hallucinating game statistics for the Super Bowl LVIII hours even before the game started.

The tech giant later had to pause the chatbot's AI image generation feature after users reported racially inaccurate depictions of historical figures through the AI.

Many of these issues remain unsolved even after Google supposedly redesigned its AIs and rolled out the feature across its apps and web platforms.

AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has already warned the public about the dangers of Google's attempts to catch up with the tech hype as more AI-generated content might soon flood the internet.

Hinton was among the first developers of AI machines in many companies today. One of his students and co-creators, Ilya Sutskever, recently left OpenAI citing similar concerns.