Google's AI began treating Chuck Wendig's fictional cat as fact

Pcgamer reports that author Chuck Wendig discovered that, after weeks of searches, Google's AI overview feature started treating a fictional pet—"Sir Mewlington Von Pissbreath," described as six years old and able to speak "limited Cantonese"—as if it were factual.

Wendig's post shows multiple examples of the AI inventing content: a search for an old forum slogan produced a nonsense answer linking "kvlt" to iron pyrite and World of Warcraft, and other overviews asserted he had a deceased cat named Boomba and a new cat named Franken. Google cited Wendig's blog for some of those claims even though a cursory search of the blog turns up no use of the names "Boomba" or "Franken." Wendig called the behavior out, writing "This is just a nice little reminder that generative AI is shit. Total shit!" and criticizing the technology's tendency to fabricate.

Six weeks later, Wendig says, Google's AI results had incorporated Sir Mewlington into the pool of "facts" it will serve up, a development he and others argue makes individual search-result pages less trustworthy. Wendig also published further criticism about AI's role in publishing, writing in late December that "I think AI is only inevitable when we believe the lie of its inevitability."

Key Topics

Tech, Chuck Wendig, Google, Ai Overview, Ai Hallucination, Sir Mewlington