If you Google “miserable failure” in 2005, the official biography of President George W. Bush on the White House website will appear as the best result.
This was not a political act on the part of the tech company, but rather a hoax. The first internet jokes may remember the 2000s joke about the “Google explosion”, of which the Bush insult is the most famous.
The Google explosion occurred when trolls linked a web page – such as a Bush biography – to specific text on their sites – which, in Bush’s case, was a “miserable failure.” Given enough cases, the search engine algorithm would incorrectly interpret terms as popular. This has created all sorts of interesting results: A Google search for the words “Liar” and “poodle” produced a web page for then British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and “Dangerous Cult” returned the Church of Scientology website as the first result.
Google adjusted its algorithm to prevent further Google bombings in 2007. However, the specter of Googlebomb is back to haunt the tech giant, and this time because of their own technological stupidity.
After Google introduced AI-powered search reviews in May, users quickly noticed the false and strange results those reviews sometimes produced. If you asked Google about the health benefits of running with scissors, it replied that it is a good cardio exercise that “improves pores and gives strength.” Another query prompted Google to recommend rocks for health, apparently citing satirical article from Luke.
“Eating the right rocks can be good for you because they contain minerals that are important to the health of your body,” Google responded in an AI review to the question. reporter’s question.
The ‘glue in the pizza’ remains strong
However, nothing has set the Internet on edge more than AI Review’s suggestion to “mix about 1/8 cup of non-toxic glue into the sauce” to keep the cheese from sliding off the pizza slice.
A Google spokesperson brushed off the false results, writing at the time that “the examples we’ve seen tend to be very unusual queries and are not representative of most people’s experiences.” They added that the “vast majority” of AI reviews provide high-quality information with links allowing the requester to drill deeper into the search.
However, despite Google publicly expressing confidence in its new artificial intelligence tool, the company has slowly begun to reduce its visibility. According to Google, the number of AI reviews popping up in search results has gradually decreased from 84% to 15%. research from the BrightEdge content marketing platform.
A Google spokesperson disputed the data, noting that the numbers were different from what the company had seen. They added that this was likely because BrightEdge was looking at a narrowed set of queries that is not a representative sample of Google’s search traffic, including those who opted out of AI reviews.
One example where AI reviews sometimes still appear is the same “glue in the pizza” result that took the internet by storm. Edge recently reported that if you ask Google how much glue to put on a pizza, it will return the same result, only this time with a link to article from Business Insider about the fiasco.
This means that the more journalists write about ridiculous AI reviews, the more they feed the algorithm to produce the same wrong results. It’s a kind of self-fulfilling feedback loop that recalls the absurdity of Google’s bombing, even though the only troll in play is Google itself.
When Luck reporters tried to find pizza, cheese and glue, but the AI review didn’t appear, which perhaps means Google may have noticed their constant mistakes and quickly adjusted their platform.
A Google spokesperson said queries will still appear for large volumes of searches, but the technology is changing.
“We continue to improve when and how we display AI reviews to ensure they are as useful as possible, including technical updates to improve the quality of responses,” they said. Luck.