Meantime another AI misstep for Google is coming to light. It's now scaling back a new AI search tool that it had unveiled just a few weeks ago

after many users reported getting back some questionable and bizarre results.

Dear Dubos is all over that today.

In today's tech check, Katie.

Questionable and bizarre is right, Carl.

So Google responding in a blog post last night

from its new head of search, Liz Reed.

The post titled About Last Week addressed those results as part of Google's broad rollout of

Gen AI answers to all of its American users, eventually in other countries as well.

It told users things like eating rocks is good for you or suggested non-toxic glue to

thicken pizza sauce.

Reed explains that they tested this feature extensively,

but quote, there's nothing quite like having millions of people

using the feature with many novel searches.

She said that there's been a large number of faked screenshots that have gone

viral topics like leaving dogs in cars, smoking well pregnant, depression. She

says those never actually appeared. But her post does walk us through how the new system works and how other

overviews like the endorsement of Eating Rocks, how that made it to the top of a

Google search. Now amazingly in this case, it originated as an onion article that was republished

on a geological software provider's website so in a weird roundabout way it was

considered credible.

Google is now though making over a dozen technical changes aimed at improving this system.

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