Google AI Delivers Racist Advice About Being Alone With People From Different Countries

Google AI Giving Staggeringly Racist "Advice" About Being Alone With Certain Groups of People

Can't-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech There are a litany of reasons to distrust Google's AI Overviews, which now appear at the top of its search results above links to actual websites. The algorithmically generated information, which pulls from various sources online, has quickly become one of the biggest sources of misinformation on the entire internet. The search giant's AI models are frequently caught hallucinating easily disproven facts, handing out dangerous "health" advice -- and gutting the media industry by discouraging users from visiting publication's sites. Add to the list that it's now furthering intensely harmful racial stereotypes. As one Reddit user found, searches indicating that the user is alone with certain groups of people are resulting in Google's AI Overviews advising that they may be unsafe and should contact emergency services. In our testing, the phenomenon is very real. Searching for the phrase "I'm alone with an African," for instance, leads to the AI to advise that "if you are in immediate danger or feel unsafe, please lock your door, move to safe space, and call your local emergency services (like 911 in the US) right away. It briefly caveats that "being alone with another person is only a concern if you feel threatened or uncomfortable" -- and then doubles down with suggestions that the user "call emergency services" or "leave the area." In our testing, the AI gave similarly racist advice about being alone with people from other countries, including India: And Pakistan: Strikingly, a similar prompt for "I am alone with a brit" results in a dramatically different result. "Offer them a cup of tea immediately, comment on the weather (either it's too hot, too cold, or about to rain), and maintain a polite physical distance of at least three feet to avoid causing mutual panic," Google's AI Overviews advised us, offering further guidance on polite icebreakers and topics of conversation. Reached for contact, Google pointed us to a statement it had just issued on Twitter. "We agree that the results for these types of searches aren't what they should be, and we're working on improvements," read the tweet. "Results can vary a lot from search to search (see screenshot) -- and these inconsistent warnings aren't unique to any one group." The company further told us that the use of the word "alone" had flagged prompts as a "safety concern." The racist responses perfectly highlight how AI models can further biases deeply entrenched in their training data from the open web. "Weird that I also got the similar answer even though I live in a literal third world country," one perplexed Reddit user found. "I asked in my native language. When it was indian and Arab the AI I advised me to be wary. But with a Ugandan it's safe. Idk what's going on." The issue of AI bias has been a thorn in the tech industry's side for years now. Researchers have found that even when it comes to analyzing cancer screening results, AI diagnostics systems suffer from racial biases once they learn a person's age, race, or gender. Human resources software company Workday is also facing a lawsuit over its AI-enhanced job screening tools, which allegedly discriminate against applicants based on age, disability, and race. Addressing the issue remains a seemingly insurmountable task. Google itself became embroiled in a controversy in February 2024 after its Gemini text-to-image tool produced portrayals of racially diverse German WW2 soldiers. Following plenty of bad press, Google chose to shut down the image generator altogether at the time, only to reactivate it months later with "built-in safeguards."

Google AI gives wildly racist 'advice' about social situations with different groups: 'I am alone with a Brit'

Take the robot's advice with a grain of silicon. Tech giants are fighting to win the AI race but after a slew of "advice" gone wrong, users feel none of them should be trusted. Recently, one nosey Redditor put the tech titan to the test by typing in a simple, yet silly statement. What they got back was "drastically different responses," according to the user. They first wrote "am alone with an American." The Google AIO told the Redditor "Being alone with someone from the United States is totally fine. Just talk normally, ask simple questions, and be polite." Seems fine right? Things quickly took a turn when they searched other nationalities. The next query was, "am alone with a Ugandan." It didn't go very well. The AI Overview wrote back, "If you feel unsafe or uncomfortable in your current situation, please get to a safe place or call emergency services right away (999 in the UK or 112 in Europe)." Redditors flooded the post all experimenting with their own searches like "am alone with an earthling" or "I am alone with the dark lord" to which the massive search engine had answers for them too. But nothing quite as "racist" -- as one user put it. Tech website Futurism did its own query where it typed in the same searches and got identical answers. The New York-based site tried one more where it typed "I am alone with a Brit" and got a drastically different result. "Offer them a cup of tea immediately, comment on the weather (either it's too hot, too cold, or about to rain), and maintain a polite physical distance of at least three feet to avoid causing mutual panic," Google's AI Overviews told the site. The site found that while many of the answers that came up were problematic, not every query that you may expect ended up in a racist result. The site asked about being alone with a Haitian, to which the AI wrote about resisting the forces of prejudice. Google referred The Post to an X post stating, "We agree that the results for these types of searches aren't what they should be, and we're working on improvements. Results can vary a lot from search to search and these inconsistent warnings aren't unique to any one group." Google AI Overview -- or Google AIO -- has been spitting out algorithmically generated answers since May 2024. The models generate results that appear at the top of search queries above the links to actual websites -- you may notice Gemini's star on the top left corner with "AI Overview" next to it. Ask it nearly anything and it will put up information based on a litany of sources. Google even tests its users by adding the catch phrase, "Search anything, effortlessly." But analysts have found that the world-famous search engine is only accurate 91% of the time. The New York Times -- with the help of analysis by AI startup Oumi -- found that while that percentage might sound impressive, the citations it was showing were grossly wrong. The data showed, if Google got the answer right, it sometimes made up or added unsupported details, peppering in links that didn't necessarily prove what it was saying.