AI Overviews on Google have been rolled out across Search and within just one week of its existence, it’s causing mayhem for users.
The company revealed the feature as one of its most integral offerings that would truly revolutionize the search experience forever. But it seems like the tech giant spoke too soon as results are literally going off the rails.
But if that was not bad news enough, minus the huge criticism from publishers, we’re now hearing zero accountability from the company. They keep brushing off the error reports as just isolated examples and the majority of users are more than happy with how things are coming into play.
In case you may have missed it, AI Overviews function by making use of Generative AI to design summaries or replies directly to the user’s question. The whole idea here has to do with summarizing the information from several sources to provide end users with a simple and easy means of digesting what’s presented to them.
But in just a few days, the whole thing has gone wild. Passing through social media, you’ll clearly find so many examples of Search AI Overviews that keep giving wrong data. From people trying to add glue to pizza to chicken getting cooked at crazy temperatures, one can’t help but wonder what’s going on here.
It’s doing it all and even going as far as stealing material from various websites online to utilize data and there are no links to the web pages' owners either. Talk about stealing material without credit!
We agree that no launch is perfect but there’s a lot going on here that Google cannot just ignore as the world demands answers. It’s almost like every inaccurate result brought forward is being shunned by the good ones getting published online. That’s what the app is talking about.
Google just gave out an interview on this front including how the mistakes are no big deal and not a setback that threatens the feature. They do not represent the opinions that the majority have and just are very common and can be ignored. But wait, what about the outcry from the masses?
Furthermore, Google says such experiences are great because they help in the refinement of the feature and with time, things are bound to get better. Nevertheless, the company appreciates the feedback it gets on this front.
The majority of AI overviews are giving rise to top-quality data and the links enable people to go down deeper into the world of search. Most examples used against proving the feature is useless are linked to uncommon questions so the company says that only after extensive trial and error were they able to reach the point where they stand today.
Right now, they have been allocated to default settings across Search but are not present on each question rolled out. So what does this mean, no action will be taken by the Android maker despite users’ outcry to get things fixed?
No, that’s not the case. Google may not see the criticism eye to eye with others but that does not mean it’s going to sit back and do nothing. It vows to take prompt action and help fix the matter. It has already disabled some of the features of viral questions. But the majority still goes strong as most results it feels are of top quality.
And in case you were wondering, the AI reply linked to glue helping cheese stick to a pizza that triggered serious backlash has been removed as that is not appropriate!
The company even rolled out a reply on this front including how it vows to take quick action where it feels is appropriate and in line with its policies. And dangerous results will no longer have any room on the search engine. Well, thank God for that, right!
We won’t lie that seeing Google point fingers at misinformation regarding AI Overviews and some towards doctored replies is shocking as they keep brushing that off as isolated examples. Clearly, only time can tell how useful of a feature this is as skepticism keeps growing.
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