Google to refine AI-generated search summaries in response to bizarre results

Google announced on Thursday that it would refine and retool its summaries of search results generated by artificial intelligence, posting a blog explaining why the feature was returning bizarre and inaccurate answers that included telling people to eat rocks or add glue to pizza sauce. The company will reduce the scope of searches that will return an AI-written summary. Google has added several restrictions on the types of searches that would generate AI Overview results, the company's head of search, Liz Reid, said, as well as "limited the inclusion of satire and humor content". The company is also taking action against what it described as a small number of AI Overviews that violate its content policies, which it said occurred in fewer than 1 in 7m unique search queries where the feature appeared. The AI Overviews feature, which Google released in the US this month, quickly produced viral examples of the tool misinterpreting information and appearing to use satirical sources like the Onion or joke Reddit posts to generate answers.