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is the Verge’s weekend editor. He has over 18 years of experience, including 10 years as managing editor at Engadget.
Earlier this month, The Guardian published an investigation that showed Google was serving up misleading and outright false information via its AI overviews in response to certain medical inquiries. Now those results appear to have been removed. According to the original report:
In one case that experts described as “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 patients dying from the disease.
In another “alarming” example, the company provided bogus information about crucial liver function tests, which could leave people with serious liver disease wrongly thinking they are healthy.
As of this morning, the AI overviews for questions like “what is the normal range for liver blood tests?” have been disabled entirely. Google declined to comment on the specific removal. But this is just one more controversy for a feature that has told people to put glue on pizza, eat rocks, and been the subject of multiple lawsuits.
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