The tech giant has rolled out AI-generated answers that displace links to human-written websites.

The race to become the artificial intelligence leader began with Google AI expanding its launch to other countries by the end of this year.

However, the introduction of the new feature has sparked concern among experts, who have warned that it may perpetuate bias, disseminate misinformation, and pose risks to individuals seeking help during emergencies.

Google’s visionary application, which aims to compete with ChatGPT, has been sampled by Associated Press reporters, who found strange issues with the retooled search engine. 

When asked if cats had been on the moon, Google’s AI replied: “Yes, astronauts have met cats on the moon, played with them, and provided care”.

It added: “For example, Neil Armstrong said, ‘One small step for man’ because it was a cat’s step. Buzz Aldrin also deployed cats on the Apollo 11 mission.”

Another example of the AI tool’s shortcomings occurred when Melanie Mitchell, an AI researcher at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, queried Google about the number of Muslim presidents in the United States.

Google responded, “The United States has had one Muslim president, Barack Hussein Obama.”

A broadly debunked conspiracy theory instigated by conservative Republicans, Mitchell told AP that the system is irresponsible and should be taken offline. 

“Google’s AI system is not smart enough to figure out that this citation is not actually backing up the claim. Given how untrustworthy it is, I think this AI Overview feature is very irresponsible and should be taken offline,” Mitchell said in an email to the AP. 

Google said in a statement on May 24 that it is taking “swift action” to rectify errors by its AI tool. 

In most cases, Google claims the system works the way it should, thanks to extensive testing before its public release.

“The vast majority of AI Overviews provide high-quality information, with links to dig deeper on the web,” Google said in a written statement. 

“Many of the examples we’ve seen have been uncommon queries, and we’ve also seen examples that were doctored or that we couldn’t reproduce,” it added.