The tool, which gives AI-generated summaries of search results, appeared to instruct a user to put glue on pizza when they searched “cheese not sticking to pizza.”
A screenshot of the summary it generated, shared on X, shows it responded with “cheese can slide off pizza for a number of reasons,” and that the user could try adding “about ⅛ cup of non-toxic glue to the sauce to give it more tackiness.”
According to another X user, the suggestion seems to have been based on a Reddit comment from 11 years ago, which was probably a joke.
Google started testing the AI Overviews feature in the US and the UK earlier this year and announced it would roll out more widely by the end of 2024. Liz Reid, the head of search, introduced it as “Google will do the googling for you” at the company’s I/O conference last week.
The pizza glue advice highlights the pitfalls of using the AI feature to search for information. In other cases, as Business Insider’s Peter Kafka points out, one issue with generative AI engines is that they can just make things up.
Kafka used AI Overviews to ask if the Tower of London was damaged by German bombs in World War II. The summary mixed up the monument with the clock tower known as Big Ben. The summary said “the roof and dials were damaged in an air raid,” but that is not correct.
Social media users have shared other examples of AL Overviews generating inaccurate responses, including when it said a “dog has played in the NHL.”
A Google representative previously told BI that such examples were “extremely rare queries and aren’t representative of most people’s experiences.” They added that the “vast majority of AI Overviews provide high-quality information” and that it carried out “extensive testing” before it launched the feature.
Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.