Quora, Google AIs say eggs can be melted
An incorrect answer about whether eggs can be melted generated by Quora’s AI system Poe was repeated in Google's Featured Snippets.
Poe, which is powered by OpenAI's GPT-3 large language model, had responded to the question 'Can you melt an egg' with 'the most common way to melt an egg is to heat it using a stove or a microwave.' The mistaken answer was then automatically picked up by Google's search engine and run as a Featured Snippet.
Quora updated Poe's answer to the question. Meantime, as noted by Futurism, Google Search's featured snippet began to feature a quote from an Ars Technica article that repeated Poe's mistaken claim.
The incident raised concerns about the reliability of both systems, and the ease with which AI-generated misinformation and disinformation can go viral.
Operator: Alphabet/Google; Quora
Developer: Alphabet/Google; OpenAI; Quora
Country: USA
Sector: Media/entertainment/sports/arts
Purpose: Generate text
Technology: Chatbot; NLP/text analysis; Neural network; Deep learning; Machine learning; Reinforcement learning
Issue: Accuracy/reliability; Mis/disinformation
Transparency: Governance
Page info
Type: Incident
Published: September 2023
Last updated: November 2023