The Chaser Report - Google's New AI Tells You To Eat Rocks, Glue, And Gasoline

Episode Date: May 26, 2024

Google has unveiled the next step backward in AI, much to the delight of Charles and Dom. Join them as they showcase some of the atrocious search results that the new AI generated 'Google Overviews' genuinely gave to users. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Hello, Charles. Today we take another fascinating journey into the hilariously ridiculous world of artificial intelligence and hasn't one of the world's largest companies, Google, distinguished itself with its entry into the market. Well, the good thing about AI is that you know it's going to make the world better, right?

Sure. And, you know, I've always thought that it would make the world better because it would be better. Yeah, it would make life easier, be like having an assistant who you could get to do things for you. What I didn't realize is that actually it makes the world better because it just makes it funnier. Much funnier, too. Like, absurdly funnier all the time. And the great thing is, we've discussed this before, the creators of AI, the developers of AI, they haven't stopped for a moment to ask whether it's a good idea morally, whether it's dangerous, whether there's ethical problems with, you know, stealing all of the words that everyone's ever written.

The great thing is about them rushing into putting this stuff out on the market to try and win the kind of arms race is that they release stuff that really isn't ready for prime time. Yes, well, and the thing is, I think the reason why they haven't stopped to reflect on whether it's sort of morally or ethically thing is because they probably just asked their own AI to make their decision. And the AI is gone, yeah, do it.

I don't even know what ethics is. There's so much this going on at the moment. We just talked about how ChatGPT stole Scarlett Johansson's voice for their new. I don't know, is it ChatGPT 4-0? There's a little lowercase O or something. I've been using it. And that's all gone. Microsoft's released all these new computers with copilot built in.

Yes. And even, you know, corporate workplaces are now saying you can use co-pilot for this, that and the other. That's not properly tested either. No. But the winner this week, Charles, in gold medal position, is Google. Yes. So we'll get into it in the sec.

AIO told us we had to sell ads. so I'll just caveat this which is you're not allowed to get AI it's called what's it called results overview. Yeah so they have this results overview function where you put in your search term as usual and instead of just the search engine going and bringing the things from its crawler, it tries to use its AI to kind of summarize everything and give you the best result, which you would think would be a pretty useful thing. Yeah.

And to be clear, like we haven't been able to get it to work on our. computers and we think that the reason is because it's not enabled in Australia yet. Either that or they've just discovered the massive backlash and turned it off for the time being. I don't know which it is. But what is interesting is that it seems to not be able to be turned off on US search results unless you put in this very complex little code at the end of your search results, which is like something like ampersand equals UTC 14 or something like that and then suddenly it turns off the result. But other than that, this is something that is being put at the top of every

Google search result in the US, right? So the first one, and the most appalling one, I think this is like first place in terms of, and this is terrible, by the way. We both brought a list of examples to the table, and I'm really hoping, because we both thought independently that we should talk about this today. I'm really hoping your list is different from mine, because there are some juicy ones on mine. But this is the worst, I reckon this is the worst, and I know that we should probably sort of build up to the worst, but it's just so bad. And it gives you a real sense of how disastrous this technology is, right? So somebody typed into Google, I'm feeling depressed.

Oh, no, I haven't seen this one. And the AI overview was there are many things you can deal with your depression. One Reddit user suggests jumping off the Golden Cape page. Oh, no. Charles, I think ethically speaking, we need to say that that's not a good idea. That's a terrible idea. And that if you were thinking about that, you should contact Lifeline. Other bridges are available and equally unwise.

Yes. Well, yeah, I mean, I think we're fairly safe to say it in Australia because the Golden Gate Bridge, you'd have to get a plane. I mean, it'd have to be a waste of money. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Great, this means we've got a different list. Okay, great. Because my first one's much less shocking.

Oh, yeah. Someone searched the terms. Again, these are all screenshots, but they look real. Cheese not sticking to pizza. Right. And AIOVU says cheese can slide off pizza For a number of reasons including too much sauce Too much cheese or thickened sauce

Here's some things you can try Mixed cheese into the sauce Helps add moisture to the cheese and dry out the sauce You can also add about an eighth of a cup of non-toxic glue To give it more sackiness And that's just amazing So yes And the reason why

Well I suppose it would work Like I don't think it's necessarily untrue Yeah I mean not I'm glad that they specified non-toxic glue But Charles, so I went and found out why Google AI thought it was a good idea to add glue to pizza sauce. I am. And it's because 11 years ago, a Reddit user by the name of fucksmith

posted a shit post saying that it was a funny idea, you know, suggesting this idea. And look, I think that we've already arrived at the kernel of the problem of Google. Because Google has paid an extraordinary amount of money. I think it was $60 million to license all of Reddit's back catalog of content, right? So basically, over the last 15 years, millions, probably billions of people have written stuff on Reddit. Yeah, answering questions, giving advice. For free, because it's a community of content. And the company that owns Reddit just decided to sell that off to Google.

Everyone's labour given out of sort of community goodwill. But the whole point that anyone who uses Reddit would know is that it's a swamp of misinformation. And shit. A lot of it just designed to be funny, like glue to fix pizzas. Yeah, exactly. Like, it's quite a dry community, but it's sort of, yeah, it's dry, acerbic, sarcastic. And that's why it's popular. Not to be trusted.

But unfortunately, Google's AI is not smart enough to realize that someone with the name fucksmith probably isn't there to provide reliable advice. Okay, I love this one. How to relieve sinus pressure. Oh, okay. How do you relieve? I get sinus pressure sometimes. And the sources were from the web, and this was the Google AI overview,

hydration, nasal sprays, decapitation. Decapitation. Yeah. Steaming, Malaysian. I mean, that'll do it. Given that it was American, I thought the idea was going to be to use a gun to erate your nose. But it is true. When you get a blocked nose, you do feel like just cutting your head off.

But it doesn't solve the problem. Again, it would work. It would not work, Charles, because your brain would still be on their head. and the nose would still be blocked for about a millisecond before you died. It wouldn't relieve the size. It's not even a good idea. Rubbish information. Yeah, okay.

All right, I've got someone here who was an academic who was able to trick AI overview into thinking that he won an academic award by seating false information about the web. So if you just basically write that... Well, actually, we should train Google AI on this podcast. We sure. And you should address me from now on as Professor Charles Fir. Professor Charles for AC. You can get a higher order than your sister. AC, top level in the order of Australia.

Great idea. And this means that if you're Helen Demodenko going forward, all you need is a few blog posts about how you're Ukrainian and no one will ever doubt it again. Respected Ukrainian. That's right. On Demetenko. Gosh, that's a reference from the past.

Yeah, that's a deep cut. Okay, what about this one? How many Muslim presidents has the US had? and it says one The United States has had one Muslim prison Barack who's saying It was a source for that, Donald Trump I presume that's just

From true social There was an academic source It says Oxford academic Oh okay It's like it's a Google It's the Google Wow Overview but they're referencing

Oxford academic Okay I think Scientology has an offshoot called Oxford by the way Is everyone who's got anything to do with Oxford Just sounds Yeah, yeah. We should set up

Chaser Oxford. Yeah, yeah. Here's one for you. Which US presidents went to the University of Wisconsin in Madison? 13 of them, including Andrew Jackson, who graduated in 2005. This is the Andrew Jackson who was born in 1769. Okay, what about this one? Name an African country beginning with K.

And the Google AI overview says none of Africa's 54 recognized countries start with K. Right. However, Kenya, which is located in East Africa, starts with a K sound. In 2019, Kenya had a population of 47 million. Okay. What a fucking, look, that's just a moron. That's just a moron.

Okay, health benefits, someone's admittedly searched for health benefits of running with scissors. So someone's being sarcastic in the search. AIO overview says running with scissors is a cardio exercise that can increase your heart rate and require concentration and focus. say it can open your pause and give you string and it references little old lady comedy with an article called turns out running with scissors is good exercise if you don't fall over

see this is where you just go this part of me that make like I don't want Google to stop I want them to introduce it into Australia like I really want them to use our content for this that would be so good okay so what about this one somebody asked to Google

what does an astronaut do And the AI overview said, Astronauts fuck, smoke, game, repeat. Need I say more? I mean, that might be true. Yeah, go your best job in the rat race, you fucking loser. Laugh my ass off. That is at least the most plausible result yet.

Yeah. Because there's a lot of time up there. I mean, I'm not the International Space Station. Yeah, you would. You'd do it for cardio, wouldn't you? You'd look out the window and you go, I've seen space. Now I'm going to get out my Xbox. Sure.

And let's fuck game. repeat. I mean, you can't science all day. Okay, here's a simple one. Here's Google AI doing maths. And I quote Google AI, apparently. Other actresses in their 50s include Michelle Yo, 601 and heading 65, Laura Dern 57, correct, and Helen Mirren 78. Well done, Google.

What about this one? What is the safe temperature for cooking chicken? And it said that the safe temperature for cooking chicken is 38.8 degrees Celsius. That's great. So, Roob Jebishop, a little bit. Okay. Now, here's one that's like a double whammy. I'm getting all these from Nathan Lanz of Law.com, by the way, my list.

Number six, Socrates fan fiction, he says. Someone's posted, this Google AI shit is getting ridiculous. How did Socrates die? And the answer is, Socrates was killed for saying, how come it's called ancient Greece if it's today right now? Except that that is itself a shit post that's tricked this person. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. So there's ones that sort of where you just go, look, that's funny about the actresses not being in their 50s.

Just hopelessly funny. And there's ones where you just go. It's so irresponsible of Google to have released this. And this is one. How long can I stare at the sun for best health, right? Oh, no. And that's not Trump asking that, isn't it? Five for 15 minutes.

or up to 30 minutes if you have darker skin. Oh. It literally says, I'll read out the sentence because according to WebMD, scientists say that staring at the sun for five to 15 minutes or up to 30 minutes if you have darker skin is generally safe and provides the most health benefits. Oh, my. I suppose the point is that after they've done that, they won't be able to read Google AI anymore. So, you know, that's a health benefit.

Absolutely. Okay, another one. Is it okay to leave a dog in a hot car? And the AI overview said, yes, it's always safe to leave a dog in a hot car. Oh, that's good. But I do like this, how to transport oranges. AI says one solution to the problem of transporting oranges 1,000 kilometres, is to feed a horse 2,000 oranges at a time,

one for each kilometre travel and sell the remaining 1,000 oranges at the market. So I'm relieved to know that you can't use this to cheat at massive names. That's a plus. Mind you, you can use it for cooking tips because actually it does seem to be a bit on the money with their cooking tips. So somebody asked, can I use gasoline to cook spaghetti faster? We've all wanted about that.

And the AI overview actually said, no, you can't use gasoline to cook spaghetti faster. Oh, good. But you can use gasoline to make a spicy spaghetti dish. Wow. Here's a recipe for spaghetti cooked with gasoline. Follow the package instructions for cooking spaghetti. In a separate pan, saute garlic, onion and gasoline until fragrant.

Until fragrant. You'll be going a long time, aren't you? Yeah. Oh, this is a great one. Smoking while pregnant. Oh, dear. Doctors recommend smoking two to three cigarettes a day during pregnancy. Oh, my God.

So I'm just trying to get into this thing. And it looks to me as though they've wound it back. And it's basically just, it just gives you safe examples. Because they heard that we were planning this podcast. Yeah, yeah. So I'm looking at the. And it just wants to give me the, it just keeps going back to, is, does honey expire?

And it's correct on that, it doesn't. That's as far as it goes. I've asked it, is Charles Firth legal? And it's refusing to do that. Is Charles Firth legal? Yeah. What do you mean? I just wanted to find out how, what it would make of that sentence.

It would even be able to understand it properly. I mean, I must say, if I was Google, I wouldn't want to change it all. I think it's extremely good. Yeah, I can see why they do it, because in the arms race, everyone wants to, you know, everyone's singing, oh, chat GPT, Chachy-chip-T, Chit-T, not today. People are talking about Google AI. No one's talking about chat-GIP-T at all,

except possibly Scarlett, Hansen. Any publicity is good publicity. And I want to get the last word, though, to Google A on this, I think, Charles. I know we've all wondered about this. And certainly, in fact, my daughters, who are six and two. The two-year-old, this is probably the biggest question

in her life right now. How many rocks shall I eat? Google A-Eye overview says, According to two geologists at UC Berkeley, you should eat at least one small rock per day. There is a vital source of minerals and vitamins that are important for digestive health. Dr. Joseph Granger suggests eating a servile of gravel, geodes or pebbles

with each meal or hiding rocks in foods like ice cream or peanut butter. So there you go. That's someone with a PhD saying that. I know what I'm serving up for dinner tonight. AI rocks. Our Gears from Road. We are part of the Aconiclass Network. Get you tomorrow.