Google Autocomplete search predictions

Featured on Google Search and YouTube, Autocomplete is an AI-based system designed to help users complete searches faster and more accurately by predicting keywords and phrases based on what other people look for.

Autocomplete started as an experimental feature in 2004, and was publicly released in 2008 as Google Suggest. Google Suggest was renamed Autocomplete in 2010.

Risks and harms

Google has a number of systems to prevent Autocomplete predictions that are unhelpful, unexpected, or unreliable, or that violate Google Search’s policies. However, Autocomplete has been in the spotlight many times for the risks it poses and the harms it causes.

These include its ability to generate inaccurate, untrue, inappropriate, offensive, biased, unethical, and illegal search predictions that variously result in the manipulation of end users, religious and other forms of discrimination, emotional distress and anxiety, loss of privacy, and defamation, amongst others. 

Google has also been castigated for perceived inadequate transparency about how Autocomplete works, and for persistently claiming that it is not legally responsible for harms it may have or has caused.

Incidents

Google Autocomplete is reported to have driven, or been involved in, the following negative events: 

• Google Autocomplete suggests Jews, women are 'evil'

• Google Autocomplete amplifies Texas massacre Antifa conspiracy

• Google Autocomplete associates Italian businessman with 'fraud'

• Google Autocomplete, Related Search reveal rape victims' names

• Google search links Natalia Denegri to 'Coppola case'

• Google Autocomplete links French sex offender to rape

• YouTube Autocomplete suggests paedophiliac phrases

• Google search prioritises Holocaust denial website

• Google Autocomplete links Australian health researcher to false blackmail accusations

• Google Search, Autocomomplete link Australian music promoter to criminal underworld

• Google Autocomplete connects Albert Yeung with triads

• Google Autocomplete suggests Australian surgeon is 'bankrupt'

• Google Autocomplete unfairly links German businessman to Scientology

• Google Autocomplete conflates Bettina Wulff with 'prostitute'

• Google Autocomplete says Rupert Murdoch, Jon Hamm are 'Jewish'

• Google Autocomplete falsely associates Japanese man with crimes

System

• Google Search

• Wikipedia. Autocomplete

• Google (2020). How Google autocomplete predictions are generated

• Google (2018). How Google autocomplete works in Search

• Google. How Google Autocomplete predictions work

• Google Patents. Predictive algorithm for search box auto-complete

• Google. Report a legal removal issue

Research, advocacy

• Al-Rawi, A., Celestini, C., Stewart, N., Worku, N. (2022). How Google Autocomplete Algorithms about Conspiracy Theorists Mislead the Public

• Roy S., Ayalon L. (2020). Age and Gender Stereotypes Reflected in Google's "Autocomplete" Function: The Portrayal and Possible Spread of Societal Stereotypes

News, commentary, analysis

• https://searchengineland.com/how-google-autocomplete-works-390257

• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-query-completions-patent/420520/

• https://www.businessinsider.com/bizarre-google-autocomplete-suggestions-2013-12

• https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/the-strange-politics-of-google-autocomplete-100808/

• https://algorithmwatch.org/en/auto-completion-disinformation/

• https://www.wired.com/story/google-autocomplete-vile-suggestions/

• https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/google-autocomplete-rightwing-bias-algorithm-political-propaganda

• https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20131106-is-google-autocomplete-evil

• https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/how-googles-autocomplete-was-created-invented-born/278991/