Google had announced at the I/O 2024 event that it is rolling out the AI overview feature to all users, the feature had hitherto been optional as part of company's generative search experience. However, now users on social media have pointed out a number of critical issues with the feature including suggesting users to add glue to pizza and even eat rocks.
The issue was first pointed out by a post by user Peter Yang on X (formerly Twitter). In the shared screenshot, the user queries ‘Cheese not sticking to pizza’.
In reply, Google's AI overviews suggested that users to add ‘non-toxic glue’ to pizza in order to give the sauce more ‘tackiness’. As it turns out, the overview was based on an 11-year-old Reddit post.
Another user queried Google about ‘how many rocks’ should they eat and the AI overviews feature once again delivered a bizarre result. While quoting UC Berkeley scientists, Google's AI stated that is recommended to eat ‘at least one small rock per day’ since they contain minerals and vitamins that are important for digestive health.
Continuing the same trend, some users who queried Google about the Muslim presidents of the United States were told that the country has had at least one Muslim President, ‘Barack Hussein Obama’.
Google acknowledged the issue in a statement to The Verge but stated that the mistakes were from ‘generaly very uncommon queries’ and are not ‘representative of most people’s experiences’.
One user on Threads wrote, “They bought and killed dozens of good ideas and give us this alpha feature. Neat."
Another user on X wrote, "it's completely damning of google's principles that its defense for the failure of AI search is that the queries being asked are "uncommon." like a library telling you the more infrequently a book is taken out, the less you should trust it".
A user while sharing Google AI's results on Barack Obama's religious identity stated, "@Google you should take this "AI Overview" feature offline right now. It is thoroughly dangerous."