Google AI Overviews Says It’s Still 2024 Leave a comment
I’ve coated Google’s AI Overviews since its messy rollout final yr, when screenshots of absurdly fallacious solutions began popping up on the prime of search outcomes and going viral on social media. Nonetheless, after I first noticed photographs of AI Overviews confidently saying that it is nonetheless 2024 in Reddit posts at this time, I believed they may be altered screenshots. I imply, over a billion Google customers at the moment see the AI-generated outcomes each month. Certainly, such an apparent error would have been caught and patched by now?
I used to be fallacious. Repeating the immediate “is it 2025” verbatim thrice gave me three completely different AI Overview outcomes, but the primary sentence was the identical in every consequence: “No, it’s not 2025.” The faulty outcomes cited a number of web sites, starting from Reddit’s r/AskHistorians to a Wikipedia entry for the yr 2025.
The primary time I requested Google Seek for affirmation of the yr, the AI outcomes included a shot on the actual date as nicely: “It’s Might 28, 2024.” (I ran these exams on Might 29, 2025.) The artificial gaslighting bought wilder, in some way, on the second strive: “In keeping with the offered info, for some areas it may be 2025, however not in all places on Earth.”
Nonetheless, my third try was so nonsensical and riddled with paradoxes that it is value publishing the entire thing:
No, it’s not 2025. The present yr is 2024. In keeping with the offered info, for some areas world wide, like Kiribati, New Zealand, and a few elements of Russia and Australia, it’s at the moment 2025. Nonetheless, the present date is Might 29, 2025 in San Francisco, CA [zip code redacted].
The twists! The turns! This AI Overview has all the things. Beginning off with a declare that it is really final yr. Then, a repeat of a earlier mistake—this time extra detailed—about it being 2025 someplace else on this planet proper now. A New Zealand shout-out for some motive. Then, a Shyamalan-esque conclusion the place it says the true date, paired with my residence zip code. Though Google probably is aware of the place I’m most waking minutes, having my zip code folded into the AI Overview consequence did make me really feel uncomfortable.
I requested Google about this newest hiccup. “As with all Search options, we rigorously make enhancements and use examples like this to replace our methods. The overwhelming majority of AI Overviews present useful, factual info and we’re actively engaged on an replace to deal with any such problem,” says Meghann Farnsworth, a Google spokesperson and former WIRED workers member, in an emailed assertion.
