I find Google’s AI useful for little bits of research, but then I go to Wiki for more in-depth answers. At least Wiki makes efforts to keep articles accurate, like noting when a statement needs some kind of citation backup.
Posted on [August 19, 2026](https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/08/19/daily-reminder-to-not-listen-to-googles-ai-overview/)
Posted by [Athena Scalzi](https://whatever.scalzi.com/author/athenascalzi/)
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19 Comments](https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/08/19/daily-reminder-to-not-listen-to-googles-ai-overview/#comments)
Hey y’all, I’m here today with a PSA that I find myself repeating multiple times a day, every single day. And I’m going to do it again. AI is wrong a lot. And I mean a lot. Both about inconsequential things and extremely consequential things. But the fact it is so wrong so consistently about inconsequential things should make you think twice about listening to it regarding anything even remotely serious.
For today’s example of “AI is always wrong and I hate that it just lies so confidently right to everyone’s face,” I’ll be talking about Connections. I play Wordle and Connections almost every day, as do many of my friends. Today, for some reason, the Connections game board is comprised of red and white tiles. This is not something I’ve ever seen before, and none of my friends know why it looks so different, either.
So, I Googled, “why is the connections board red,” and Google AI Overview told me “The Connections game board turns red when you make a mistake or get an answer wrong.”
Guess what! THAT’S NOT FUCKING TRUE!
Please please please stop Googling things, looking at the AI Overview, and assuming it has given you the correct answer to your query. Don’t trust Google AI with anything, even with inconsequential things! Because it will, and DOES, lie to you. And it can’t be held accountable for giving you wrong information. It just does it and suffers no consequence. The consequence falls only on you.
If you know why the game board is red, please tell me, I am still very curious. -AMS
19 Comments on “Daily Reminder To Not Listen To Google’s AI Overview”
I think the Connections board is supposed to look like a classic red and white gingham picnic blanket as a callback to some of the clues.
At this point I just assume it is wrong all the time. I’ve turned it off by using udm14, because even seeing it accidentally spikes up my cortisol now. Straight up nonsense 🙄
Pretty sure that’s what someone who lost at Connections would say. At least, that’s what Google AI said.
The board is checkered to look like a picnic blanket. It’s part of a running theme through some other NYT puzzles today (Strands, Mini, Midi, Crossword).
Just a misdirection.
I will not say more as I don’t want to share spoilers ( or maybe I already have?)
I have also noticed the negative impact of AI on Google search. I have been using Google Search and Google Chrome for a long time but I just finished migrating to Firefox and using Duck Duck Go search and I’m only a week in but the browser seems faster and it’s surprising how much I appreciate a search returning links. I do use ChatGPT and Gemini for research but it seems when I searching for a website, I much prefer being the one who decides the resource instead of AI.
Oh, Athena.
Please read “On Bullshit” by Harry G. Frankfurt .
It describes the difference between lying and bullshit, and argues that bullshit is worse,
I have identified it as one of my biggest problems with DJT, and it is also the reason that I put about as much faith in Google’s AI as you do. - I always, always, always check the sources Google’s AI says it’s pulling the info from, go read those pages, and if I know it’s bullshit already, I look at the websites the regular search returns to make sure I’m not relying on bullshit answers from AI. Not just with Google, with any AI. And to round it out, I go looking for books and other publications related to the topic if possible.
Unfortunately I have folks in my sphere who think they should use AI for everything and then wonder why people tell them they’re wrong. 🙄
Thanks for fighting the good fight Athena!
I think Joy is probably right.
AI is almost ALWAYS wrong!
We were watching a British TV series – The Chelsea Detective, if you care – and one of the guest stars was awfully familiar, though I didn’t recognize the names in the cast. So I asked Google, “Who played Piers Mason in The Chelsea Detective, series 4 #3?”
Pretty specific, right? Hard to make a mistake, you’d think.
Mr. AI told me promptly and definitively, “There is NO character named Piers Mason in…blah blah” – which was just infuriating.
Turns out it was Lee Ingleby with a terrible wig.
SPOILER ALERT: Given the general rule of British crime shows (“the most well known guest star is usually the murderer”), my wife immediately declared him the killer. I won’t say more. END SPOILER
My most recent example of Google getting things wrong is coming across a nice drawing of a woman with butterflies hovering around her. Wanted to identify the artist, so I did a Google Lens search.
Which identified it as “The Flapper” by J.C. Leydendecker, a pretty famous 1922 cover of LIFE magazine by a pretty famous artist.
Which the original image definitely was not. The Leydendecker is a striking image of a (fairy?) woman in a diaphanous gown with immense wings sprouting from her back. The image I was trying to identify was a mice-looking ordinary woman taking delight in the butterflies flying in the air around her.
It’s really, really sad to see what Google has allowed itself to degrade into.
@Matthew. You used the word “wiki” in a totally normal way, but my brain objects because I’m living in the past. Wiki is bad shorthand for Wikipedia, because there are (still) online things called wikis.
The wiki was invented by Ward Cunningham. I get reinforcement because I’ve met him a few times socially here in Portland, at geek gatherings and a wedding.
Don’t mind me. I still think that “hacker” only refers to black hats, and that “blog” is not good shorthand for a blog post on a blog. I remember when these words were new.
An unexpected (to me) peril of living a long time.
Should have asked why it is red “today”. The answer is it’s the sports edition hosted by the NY Times The Athletic. Probably also depends on which AI you use. I used Gemini. Apparently you can get back to the original through the menu somehow.
Just wait. Next month, anyone using an Android phone will be forced to use Gemini. I used it once before disabling it when they pushed it to my phone. I wanted to navigate somewhere and it would not shut up, it would not commence navigating until I let it run through all its points, and the words “No. Shut up and go” meant nothing to it.
But as far as search? I solve that problem by not using Google. They essentially destroyed their search years ago. Now it exists to display ads, links to other Google properties, and anything in pop culture that your search can be twisted into. Here are others I have tried that work pretty well: DuckDuckGo, Qwant, if you must have Google then use Startpage which protects your privacy and sucks all the Google out of Google Search, Kagi (outstanding but you pay for it with money instead of your information), and Qwant (based in France so you’re protected by EU privacy laws).
I think this whole AI thing is a bubble. It is essentially an elaborate version of autocomplete. It literally does not know what it is saying. The most likely thing to come next very often is not the right thing. Think about how many times your phone has autocorrected a word to the wrong word. AI is the same thing only bigger. Companies that fired a lot of people and replaced them with AI are rehiring all the people they fired.
They’re making a big deal these days about how AI is solving longstanding mathematical problems. But if you don’t know how it solved the problem, you cannot regard it as a proof. And no one knows how LLMs get from input to output. They are the blackest of black boxes. They can be made to produce traces of their logic, but there are strong reasons to believe that those traces are unrelated to what they actually did as they are produced after the fact using the same LLM.
I think they’re trying to lure you into picking a combination that will lead you in the wrong direction.
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I’ve changed almost entirely to DuckDuckGo for a browser, and don’t use their AI search.
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if I am on Google, I scroll past AI overview, and look for a real result.
On the other hand, I’m not totally sure I believe that, either. I started cross examining it and it seemed to lead down a bit of a rabbit hole. I think it’s guessing, maybe because NYT hasn’t really said anything public about it. If it was a little less arrogant, it might lead off with “I’m not sure, because NYT hasn’t published anything specific about it, but it might be….”.
I’ve looked up stuff about
Star Trekbefore and, upon seeing ludicrous results on display in the AI Overview, I’d look more closely and sometimes see that the results are being pulled from the “Star Trek Shitposting” Facebook page or r/ShittyDaystrom or other such dubious “sources.”Though, as often as not, it doesn’t site any sources at all.
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