**Google’s AI Overviews Under Fire Again: A Mixed Bag of Progress**
You might recall that The Guardian recently blew the lid off an investigation that exposed Google’s AI Overviews for spewing out misleading health information in response to certain queries. Well, it seems like Google has finally taken notice and taken some action – but it’s not entirely clear if it’s enough.
According to the latest report from The Guardian, AI Overviews have been yanked for specific medical queries, like “what’s the normal range for liver blood tests” and “what’s the normal range for liver function tests”. On the surface, this seems like a win for users, right? But scratch beneath the surface, and you’ll find a more complicated situation.
The initial Guardian investigation found that these queries would return AI-generated summaries that failed to take into account important factors like nationality, sex, ethnicity, or age. This could have led people to incorrectly interpret their test results, which is no laughing matter.
However, the latest report from The Guardian suggests that even after AI Overviews were removed, variations of these queries (like “lft reference range” or “lft test reference range”) still yield AI-generated summaries. Yeah, it’s a mixed bag, to say the least.
I tried these queries myself this morning, and none of them came back with AI Overviews. Instead, Google presented users with the option to ask the same question in AI Mode, and often, the top result was actually the Guardian article about the removal of AI Overviews. Talk about a head-scratcher!
A Google spokesperson opted not to comment on specific removals within Search, but did say that the company is working on broad improvements. They also claimed that an internal team of clinicians reviewed the queries highlighted by The Guardian and found that “in many cases, the data was not inaccurate and was also supported by high-quality websites”.
TechCrunch has reached out to Google for further comment, but so far, we haven’t heard back. Last year, Google announced new features aimed at improving Google Search for healthcare use cases, including improved overviews and health-focused AI models.
Vanessa Hebditch, director of communications and policy at the British Liver Trust, told The Guardian that the removal of AI Overviews is a step in the right direction, but added, “Our greater concern is that it’s nit-picking a single search result and Google can just shut off the AI Overviews for that but it’s not tackling the bigger issue of AI Overviews for health.”
So, what does this all mean? It seems like Google is at least trying to address the issue of AI-generated summaries providing misleading health information, but there’s still work to be done. Let’s hope the company continues to prioritize transparency and accuracy in its search results, especially when it comes to healthcare.
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