Quora, Google AIs say eggs can be melted

Occurred: September 2023

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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