Google is heading into troubled waters: at its latest presentation, Google I/O, it announced the incorporation of results from its generative algorithm, Gemini, into its search results using what it calls “AI Overviews.”
As of May 14, many millions of the search engine’s users in the United States began receiving Gemini answers as part of their results pages, and many millions more will soon begin to do so worldwide.
What at first appears a major innovation; the company’s response to generative AI, comes with a potentially very significant problem: while the answers that Google delivers in the form of links to other pages, where it is simply passing on or distributing information, are protected by the well-known (and controversial) Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, the answers that Google produces using its own generative algorithm, Gemini aren’t; they are created by a tool owned by the company itself. No disclaimer can fix this: even if the user that receives the answer could be ok with that, the person mentioned in that same answer probably wouldn’t.
The tendency of generative algorithms to routinely “get drunk” — producing vague, ridiculous or outright spurious correlations and generating what has incorrectly been called “hallucinations” — can end up triggering potential liabilities.
For example, what happens when a generative algorithm says a radio host receives money from an organization that supports gun-rights legislation? What happens is that the presenter sues the company for defamation, and given that the claim was false, wins the case. This has happened to OpenAI, the first company to launch a generative algorithm used by millions around the world, and has already led to other, similar cases. But what happens when Google does the same? Given the even bigger numbers of people who use it, the law of averages says we are going to start finding results of this type with a relatively high frequency, and many of those who receive them will possibly be in a position to bring legal action.
While progress has been made, nonsensical or false responses pose a huge challenge for companies developing generative algorithms, primarily due to the probabilistic nature of these models and the inherent complexities of human language. Post-moderation-based systems can possibly, but not always, reduce the incidence of popular or commonplace results, but for others, human feedback is required that may not want to simply make a correction, and instead, people will start suing the company that generated the result. Reinforcement of model learning may be a solution, but it is neither simple, nor is it quick or universal. And a simple disclaimer in the form of small print under the answers isn’t going to cut it either.
Google’s problem is clear, and we anticipated it some time ago: it’s called “the innovator’s dilemma”, described wonderfully well by Clayton Christensen in his book of the same name, and alludes to what usually happens to a market leader that tries to innovate: the consequences of change can be overstated, both for the good and for the bad. If you don’t incorporate generative algorithms into your search engine, you’ll see other competitors do it and start stealing your market share. But if you do, you’re putting a robot with a tendency to get drunk at the helm, with all that that can entail every time your mistakes ruin someone’s reputation, and what you’re steering is not a pleasure boat in the form of a startup or small company, but an oil tanker. Not to mention the potential reputational effects if those responses come to be interpreted as touching on certain sensitive issues.
As said, Google is on the horns of a dilemma: doing nothing as ChatGPT took over the world wasn’t an option, but by joining the AI arms race, things could blow up in its face.
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This post was previously published on Enrique Dans’ blog.
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