Google’s AI Overviews Reinforce Some Conspiracy Theories — New Research

Imagine overhearing on a bus that the city council plans to implement new restrictions under an urban planning program called “15-minute cities.” Curious, you search the term on Google.

It’s likely that at the top of the results page, an AI-generated text summarising the search results will appear. This text synthesizes content from various webpages that answer specific search queries. They are increasingly appearing not only in Google, but also in other search engines, and users are now likely to stop reading the search results page beyond this AI-generated text.

But what if the AI-generated answer — the only search result users may see — confidently makes misleading or incorrect claims? Or reinforces conspiratorial ideas suggested by pro-conspiracy search terms?

Our new research, published in the journal Media International Australia, shows this is sometimes true of Google’s AI-generated overviews. It highlights that stronger guardrails are needed to tackle the spread of dangerous conspiracy theories.

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