Google is experimenting with replacing human-written headlines with AI-generated ones in the company's Discover feed. Unfortunately, AI-generated headlines are often misleading or downright false.
For those unfamiliar, Discover is a content feed that sits to the left of the main home screen on some Android devices, such as Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy phones. It can also be accessed through the Chrome browser and the Google app on Android and iPhone. Because of its ease of access, Discover has become a popular way for people to find news and other web content that interests them, and a leading source of traffic for many publications (including us here at MobileSyrup).
So it's no surprise that publications are outraged by these changes. Edge was one of the first to notice AI headlines and collected many examples of headlines that were made worse or incorrect by Google's AI. Notable examples include PC gamer story about Baldur's Gate 3 players find a way to create an army of unkillable children get the AI-generated headline “BG3 Players Exploiting Children.” Meanwhile, 9to5Google story analyzing the benefits of 25W Qi2 charging compared to the slower 5W version received an AI-generated headline: “Qi2 slows down older pixels.”
Screenshot courtesy: The Verge
While these headlines were completely wrong, other AI-generated headlines simply replaced decent headlines with boring, mediocre, or overall less attractive ones. In other cases, the AI replaced headlines with clickbait, which actually goes against Google's own Discover content policies..
But the bigger problem is that Google doesn't do a very good job of explaining when its AI replaces headlines. First, Discover doesn't display the AI label until users click the Learn More button. When they do, the label only notes that the content is “Generated by artificial intelligence, which may allow errors,” but does not specify whether it was generated by a headline, a summary, or both.
This can make readers think that publishers are responsible for bad headlines, when in fact AI is replacing good, human-generated headlines that are trying to attract people.
Luckily, this is just an experiment, according to Google. Edge that the test is only intended for “a subset of Discover users.” While it's possible that the search giant won't push for a wider version, we've also seen the company repeatedly prioritizing its own artificial intelligence products over the well-being of the Internet.
Source: Edge, Android authority
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