Cats on the moon? Google’s AI tool is producing misleading responses that have experts worried

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Ask Google if cats have been on the moon and it used to spit out a ranked list of websites so you could discover the answer for yourself. Now it comes up with an instant answer generated by artificial intelligence—which may or may not be correct. “Yes, astronauts have met cats on the moon, played with them, and provided care,” said Google's newly retooled search engine in response to a query by an Associated Press reporter. It added, “For example, Neil Armstrong said, ‘One small step for man’ because it was a cat’s step. Buzz Aldrin also deployed cats on the Apollo 11 mission.” None of this is true. Similar errors—some funny, others harmful falsehoods—have been shared on social media since Google last month unleashed AI Overviews, a makeover of its search page that frequently puts the summaries on top of search results. The new feature has alarmed experts who warn it could perpetuate bias and misinformation and endanger people looking for help in an emergency. “Given how untrustworthy it is, I think this AI Overviews feature is very irresponsible and should be taken offline,” Melanie Mitchell, an AI researcher at the Santa Fe Institute said in an email to the AP. Google said in a statement that it's taking “swift action” to fix errors that violate its content policies; and using that to "develop broader improvements" that are already rolling out. But in most cases, Google claims the system is working the way it should thanks to extensive testing before its public release. "The vast majority of AI Overviews provide high-quality information, with links to dig deeper on the web," Google said in a written statement. "Many of the examples we've seen have been uncommon queries, and we've also seen examples that were doctored or that we couldn't reproduce." This article was provided by The Associated Press.