Glue on pizza? Google's AI summary is reminiscent of the “Googlebombing” craze of the early 2000s

Do a Google search for “miserable failure” in 2005 and the top result will be President George W. Bush's official biography on the White House website.

This wasn't tech company politics, but rather a prank — fans of early internet jokes may remember the hilarious Google-bombings of the 2000s, the most famous of which were insults to Bush.

Google bombing happened when trolls linked web pages, such as a biography of Bush, to specific text on their own sites that, in Bush's case, was a dismal failure. With enough examples, the search engine's algorithms mistakenly assumed the term was linked in general. This produced a variety of amusing results: a Google search for “liar” and “poodle” brought up the web page of then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, while “dangerous cults” brought up the Church of Scientology's website as the first result.

Google tweaked its algorithm in 2007 to prevent further Googlebombs, but the specter of the Googlebomb is once again haunting the tech giant, this time due to Google's own technical failings.

After Google rolled out its AI-powered search summaries in May, users quickly noticed the strange, erroneous results these summaries sometimes delivered. When asking Google about the health benefits of running with scissors, it replied that the exercise is good cardio for improving pores and building strength. In another query, Google recommended the health benefits of rocks, seemingly referencing a satirical article in The Onion.

Eating the right rocks could be good for your health, as the right rocks contain minerals that are important for your body's health, Google's AI research team said in response to a reporter's question.

Pizza glue is still going strong

But nothing set the internet abuzz quite like a suggestion from AI Overview to mix about 1/8 cup of a non-toxic adhesive into your sauce to stop cheese from sliding off your pizza slices.

A Google spokesperson dismissed the erroneous search results, writing at the time that the examples we saw were typically highly unusual search queries and not representative of most people's experiences. They added that the majority of AI summaries provide high-quality information along with links that allow searchers to dig deeper into their search.

But even as Google publicly expressed confidence in its new AI tools, it quietly began reducing their visibility: According to research from content marketing platform BrightEdge, Google gradually reduced the proportion of AI summaries shown in search results from 84% to 15%.

A Google spokesperson disputed the data, noting that the numbers differ from those the company has seen, and added that this was likely because BrightEdge was looking at a narrowed set of queries that weren't a representative sample of Google search traffic, including users who have opted out of AI summaries.

One example where AI summaries still pop up from time to time is the pizza glue result that went viral. The Verge recently reported that asking Google how much glue to put on a pizza returns the same result, but now cites a Business Insider article reporting on the debacle.

So it seems that the more journalists write about stupid AI profiles, the more they encourage the algorithms to produce the same wrong results. It's a kind of self-fulfilling feedback loop, reminiscent of the absurdity of the Google-bombing era, except here the only person at fault is Google itself.

When Fortune reporters tried various searches for things like pizza, cheese, and glue, no AI profiles appeared, which could mean Google noticed their continued failures and quickly adjusted its platform.

A Google spokesperson said the query continues to show up in many searches, but that edits to the technology are underway.

The company told Fortune that it will continue to improve how and when the AI ​​Summary is displayed to make it as helpful as possible, including technology updates to improve the quality of responses.

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Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://fortune.com/2024/06/12/google-ai-wrong-googlebomb-glue-pizza/ The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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