Do I have the flu or Covid? Why do I wake up feeling tired? What is causing the pain in my chest? For more than two decades, typing medical questions into the world’s most popular search engine has served up a list of links to websites with the answers. Google those health queries today and the response will likely be written by artificial intelligence.
Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, first set out the company’s plans to enmesh AI into its search engine at its annual conference in Mountain View, California, in May 2024. Starting that month, he said, US users would see a new feature, AI Overviews, which would provide information summaries above traditional search results. The change marked the biggest shake-up of Google’s core product in a quarter of a century. By July 2025, the technology had expanded to more than 200 countries in 40 languages, with 2 billion people served AI Overviews each month.
With the rapid rollout of AI Overviews, Google is racing to protect its traditional search business, which generates about $200bn (£147bn) a year, before upstart AI rivals can derail it. “We are leading at the frontier of AI and shipping at an incredible pace,” Pichai said last July. AI Overviews in particular were “performing well”, he added.
But overviews carry risks, experts say. They use generative AI to provide snapshots of information about a topic or question, adding conversational answers above the traditional search results in the blink of an eye. They can cite sources, but do not necessarily know when that source is incorrect.
Within weeks of the feature launching in the US, users encountered untruths across a range of subjects. One AI Overview said Andrew Jackson, the seventh US president, graduated from college in 2005. Elizabeth Reid, Google’s head of search, responded to criticism in a blog post. She conceded that “in a small number of cases”, AI Overviews had misinterpreted language on web pages and presented inaccurate information. “At the scale of the web, with billions of queries coming in every day, there are bound to be some oddities and errors,” she wrote.
But when those questions are about health, accuracy and context are essential and non-negotiable, experts say. Google is facing mounting scrutiny of its AI Overviews for medical queries after a Guardian investigation found people were being put at risk of harm by false and misleading health information.
The company says AI Overviews are “reliable”. But the Guardian found some medical summaries served up inaccurate health information and put people at risk of harm. In one case, which experts said was “really dangerous”, Google wrongly advised people with pancreatic cancer to avoid high-fat foods. Experts said this was the exact opposite of what should be recommended, and may increase the risk of…
Source link
Disclaimer
We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We blogs.grocliq.com want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.
Website Upgradation is going on for any glitch kindly connect at [email protected]
