Source of Google AI summary an 11 year old Reddit comment

  • When Generative AI was first launched in Google Search, I ran a few test queries to see if it could find some old things I had done on the web. For example [ mylastname string library c++ myinstitution ]

    Search produced a Generative AI result with a confabulation: it said that I had written an open source string library known as the "Mylastname C++ String Library" and even gave code examples of how to #include <mylastname.h> and use the API (which looks just like std::string).

    I reported this to somebody who forwarded it on to the search team and also blogged about it. After a couple days, my blog was the top search result (not AI, just a search link), and after about 6 months, the generated AI result stopped showing up at all.

    They may still be tuning the system but I don't think they are going to be able to create a true, reliable question answering system with what they have now.