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Death by AI

(davebarry.substack.com)
583 points ano-ther | 1 comments | 19 Jul 25 14:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.253s | source
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jwr ◴[19 Jul 25 21:33 UTC] No.44619638[source]▶
I'd say this isn't just an AI overview thing. It's a Google thing. Google will sometimes show inaccurate information and there is usually no way to correct it. Various "feedback" forms are mostly ignored.

I had to fight a similar battle with Google Maps, which most people believe to be a source of truth, and it took years until incorrect information was changed. I'm not even sure if it was because of all the feedback I provided.

I see Google as a firehose of information that they spit at me ("feed"), they are too big to be concerned about any inconsistencies, as these don't hurt their business model.

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cosmical65 ◴[20 Jul 25 02:52 UTC] No.44621577[source]▶
> I'd say this isn't just an AI overview thing. It's a Google thing. Google will sometimes show inaccurate information and there is usually no way to correct it.

Well, in this case the inaccurate information is shown because the AI overview is combining information about two different people, rather than the sources being wrong. With traditional search, any webpages would be talking about one of the two people and contain only information about them. Thus, I'd say that this problem is specific to the AI overview.

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1. jamesrcole ◴[20 Jul 25 04:47 UTC] No.44622065[source]▶
The science fiction author Greg Egan has been "battling" with Google for many years because, even though there are zero photos of him on the internet, Google insists that certain photos are of him. This was all well before Google started using AI. He's written about it here: https://gregegan.net/ESSAYS/GOOGLE/Google.html