Google’s AI Overview feature in Search is disseminating wrong facts about the latest plane crash in Ahmedabad. When a user searched for the term ‘last airbus fatal crash’, the top AI Overview result shared wrong details of the plane crash that happened yesterday. It suggested that it was Airbus plane that had crashed, when in fact, it was a Boing 787 Dreamliner. This misinformation could very well lead to dire consequences for Airbus which isn’t involved in this matter at all. Boeing shares plummeted by more than 5 percent after the Air India plane crash yesterday. This incident is pegged as the bigger aviation tragedy in history.
A Reddit user shared a screenshot of the mishap stating that, “Google is showing that it was an Airbus that crashed today in India. I have no words. How is these being allowed?’ This misinformation was showing up in the AI Overview feature that shows up at the top of every search result. Ever since this was flagged, Google has removed ‘AI Overview’ from all search results related to plane crash. It still continues to show AI Overview for other search queries.
Another Reddit user points out at how dangerous this can be. He says that such misinformation could widely spread in the garb of ‘Google said so’, especially by people who do not have the technical knowledge or understanding of how AI works. “This is how misinformation spreads, and in a world where there is already plenty of misinformation going around, the last thing we need is for Google to provide incorrect summaries packaged as AI Overview,” said the user.
One user also suggested that Airbus should sue Google for the damages. “AI is not ready for things like this, putting AI results at the top of search results with a tiny little disclaimer is just bad. This rush to implement half-assed AI is going to cause a world of hurt, another user retorts. Google does share a disclaimer at the end of every AI Overview that reads, ‘AI responses may include mistakes.’
