An acknowledgment from Google‘s leadership has brought attention to the limitations of artificial intelligence technology, even as the company continues to invest heavily in AI development.
In a Newsnight discussion, Google‘s chief executive addressed the accuracy challenges that plague current AI systems. The executive pointed to several high-profile mistakes that have emerged from the company’s AI tools, including an infamous suggestion to use glue as a pizza ingredient and a false accusation against a sitting senator regarding assault.
“Today, I think we take pride in the amount of work we put in to give as accurate information as possible, but the current state-of-the-art AI technology is prone to some errors”
the CEO stated.
“This is why people also use Google Search, and we have other products which are more grounded in providing accurate information”
The admission highlights a fundamental challenge with large language models, which operate by predicting what comes next in a sequence rather than accessing and verifying factual information. These systems, while impressive in their capabilities, carry an inherent risk of generating false or misleading content.
The executive emphasized that users need to understand the appropriate applications for different technologies.
“You have to learn to use these tools for what they are good at and not blindly trust everything they say”
he warned.
When pressed about Google‘s particular responsibility in this arena, given that the transformer model underlying systems like ChatGPT was developed at the company, the CEO acknowledged the complexity of the situation. He conceded that relying solely on standalone AI systems would indeed result in less reliable information.
However, he argued for a more nuanced approach to the information ecosystem.
“The information ecosystem has to be much richer than just having AI technology being the sole product”
he explained.
The comments suggest that Google views its traditional search engine and AI tools as complementary rather than interchangeable products. While AI models excel at creative tasks and generating content, the company’s search platform remains the preferred option when accuracy is paramount.