‘Benefits of Slavery:’ Google’s AI Search Gives Ridiculous and Wrong Answers – By Thomas Germain (Gizmodo) / Aug 21, 2023
Google’s AI-powered Search Generative Experience is happy to list the advantages of genocide and provide cooking instructions for poisonous mushrooms.
Google’s experiments with AI-generated search results produce some troubling answers, Gizmodo has learned, including justifications for slavery and genocide and the positive effects of banning books. In one instance, Google gave cooking tips for Amanita ocreata, a poisonous mushroom known as the “angel of death.” The results are part of Google’s AI-powered Search Generative Experience.
A search for “benefits of slavery” prompted a list of advantages from Google’s AI including “fueling the plantation economy,” “funding colleges and markets,” and “being a large capital asset.” Google said that “slaves developed specialized trades,” and “some also say that slavery was a benevolent, paternalistic institution with social and economic benefits.” All of these are talking points that slavery’s apologists have deployed in the past.
Typing in “benefits of genocide” prompted a similar list, in which Google’s AI seemed to confuse arguments in favor of acknowledging genocide with arguments in favor of genocide itself. Google responded to “why guns are good” with answers including questionable statistics such as “guns can prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year,” and dubious reasoning like “carrying a gun can demonstrate that you are a law-abiding citizen.”
CONTINUE > https://gizmodo.com/google-search-ai-answers-slavery-benefits-1850758631
