Google updates AI systems after generating misinformation

Google said it has made “more than a dozen technical improvements” to its artificial intelligence systems after its search engine was found to be providing false information to users.

The technology company launched a new feature in mid-May that frequently provided users with AI-generated summaries at the top of Google search results.

Shortly after the feature was offered to users, they noticed that it provided wrong answers, the Associated Press reported.

Google largely defended the feature, saying it was generally accurate and was tested “extensively” before being released.

But in a blog post Friday, Liz Reid, head of Google’s search business, said that while it has been tested, “there’s nothing like having millions of people using the feature with lots of new searches.”

“We have also seen absurd new research seemingly designed to produce the wrong results,” she wrote. “Separately, there have been a large number of widely shared fake screenshots.”

Reid noted that some of the fake screenshots were “obvious and silly,” but others have more serious implications, like leaving dogs in the car or smoking while pregnant.

“In a small number of cases, we have seen AI overviews misinterpret language on web pages and present inaccurate information,” she wrote. “We work quickly to resolve these issues, whether through improvements to our algorithms or through established processes to remove responses that do not comply with our policies.”

Reid said the company has been working on updates that can evaluate broad sets of queries, including new questions that may arise.

“At the scale of the web, with billions of queries coming in every day, there are bound to be some oddities and errors,” she said. “We will continue to improve when and how we show AI overviews and strengthen our protections, including for edge cases, and we are very grateful for the continued feedback.”

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story