Google rolled out AI answers called AI Overview for your search queries earlier this month, and the results were hilarious. From adding glue to your pizza to saying parachutes are useless, it was quite a mess that Google says it’s fixing.
The reason for the weird responses to some questions is that there wasn’t much out there on the web that answered those queries in a serious manner, Liz Reid, vice president and head of Google Search, said in a blog post on Thursday. Referred to as a “data void” or “information gap,” these glaring holes of high-quality content that Google searches for ended up being filled with satirical content from sources like The Onion or trolling posts on forums that did have an answer to the query. This results in Google suggesting adding rocks to a healthy diet.
“From looking at examples from the past couple of weeks, we were able to determine patterns where we didn’t get it right, and we made more than a dozen technical improvements to our systems,” Reid said.
Reid says that to fix the problem, there will be better detection for nonsensical queries that will limit satire and humorous content. User-generated content like forum posts will also be limited. Queries regarding health will have beefed up refinements to give better answers while hard news searches will show fewer AI Overviews.
So it looks like, much to the chagrin of Google users, AI Overview is here to stay. While the answers will allegedly get “better,” it’s still something people aren’t fans of. Those who want them gone altogether can check out Gizmodo’s quick guide on how to purge AI Overview from Google Search.
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