Google is testing short, AI-generated headlines that replace actual titles in news stories in its Discover service. They are often nonsense or misleading.
Google is testing short, AI-generated headlines that replace actual titles in news stories in its Discover service. They are often nonsense or misleading.
Google Discover is a personalized feed of content that is easily accessible on many Android phones by swiping right. As Futurism reports with reference to The Verge, Discover has recently started showing short and strange headlines for some news stories.
«BG3 Players Exploit Children,» reads one such headline for an article about the RPG Baldur’s Gate 3. The actual PC Gamer article is about how players discovered a way to copy virtual children in the video game, rather than actually using children, as the simplistic headline suggests.
Another headline claimed that «Steam Machine Price Revealed,» even though gaming company Valve has yet to announce the price of its upcoming device. «Valve’s Steam Machine Looks Like a Console, But Don’t Expect It to Cost the Same,» read the original headline from Ars Technica.
These and other examples of headlines in Discover indicate that Google’s AI attempts to reduce the actual headline to just four words, often resulting in a distortion of the content. A small message below the short description of Discover’s content warns that some of its link elements are «generated using artificial intelligence, which can make mistakes.»
«These screenshots show a small UI experiment for a subset of Discover users. We’re testing a new design that repositions existing headings to make it easier to see the details of a topic before users follow links from across the web,» a Google spokesperson said.
Previously, the WSJ drew attention to the fact that the use of Google AI for news search and summaries is causing a significant drop in traffic on the websites of news publishers, which threatens their financial situation and the quality of journalism.
