It is not OK Google.
How do we explain the sum of Google’s Knowledge? No easy way and it is not about the website data stored inside the giant Google machine; The most powerful AI algorithm to match it with our search.
But still, the moment I am writing this line, Google is confused and factually wrong about whether there’s an African country beginning with the letter k.
Look at the screenshot and try it on your search engine. I searched for ““What is an African country beginning with K?”The featured snippet answer is saying “ “While there are 54 recognized countries in Africa, none of them begin with the letter ‘K…’”Google is showing it confidently and authentically (in UX terms) to the user and none wants to visit another website to get the ‘truth’.
The answer continues and resembles an absurd response from a Silliconvelly nerd who is studying Linguistics on the weekends; “The closest is Kenya, which starts with a ‘K’ sound, but is actually spelled with a ‘K’ sound. It’s always interesting to learn new trivia facts like this.”
The farce is not over. The text shown by Google is actually written by ChatGPT and fetched from Ycombinator’s hacker news page.
You may have seen the ‘Surprise Me’ button on some Generative AI sites. This is an actual and original surprise from one of the most capable algorithms in the world. The Kenya error has been reported by Christphor Ingraham in a tweet. It shows and exisitential challenge of Google and search engines in Generative AI era.
As of now, the complex algorithm fails to identify the AI generated junk and shows these untrue, nonsensical texts with a silly confidence of a Silicon valley nerd; like Sheldon Cooper from the sitcom Big Bang Theory.
Let’s wait and see how Google is going to identify AI junk and show results more accurately. Generative AI brough the existential question to Google’s head; who am I ?
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