A.I. “learns” by scouring language that has been published or posted. If outdated or never-true “facts” are posted on the web, A.I. may regurgitate them. It takes human eyes to check whether there really is a picnic table in a park.
(p. B1) Last week, I asked Google to help me plan my daughter’s birthday party by finding a park in Oakland, Calif., with picnic tables. The site generated a list of parks nearby, so I went to scout two of them out — only to find there were, in fact, no tables.
“I was just there,” I typed to Google. “I didn’t see wooden tables.”
Google acknowledged the mistake and produced another list, which again included one of the parks with no tables.
I repeated this experiment by asking Google to find an affordable carwash nearby. Google listed a service for $25, but when I arrived, a carwash cost $65.
I also asked Google to find a grocery store where I could buy an exotic pepper paste. Its list included a nearby Whole Foods, which didn’t carry the item.
For the full commentary see:
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date May 29, 2024, and has the title “Google Introduced a New Way to Use Search. Proceed With Caution.”)