Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) led four other Democrats in a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, calling for the platform to direct Americans to “authoritative” resources.
“Given the rising threat of misinformation and disinformation online, it is critical that Americans are directed to authoritative, accurate resources when using Google’s platform,” the lawmakers wrote.
The letter concerns Google’s AI Overviews feature, which is “intended to provide an AI-generated snapshot with key information accompanied by web links,” the letter states.
“However, reporting has already found the feature to provide misleading information from a wide range of untrustworthy sources,” the lawmakers noted. “These sources often include satirical sites, or at worst, long-debunked conspiracy postings.”
For example, when “users searched for how many Muslim presidents the United States has had,” the AI tool responded by saying the United States has had “one Muslim president, Barack Hussein Obama,” an answer that was criticized by the lawmakers.
“We appreciate Google’s efforts to fix these errors by improving the feature through continued testing, taking down responses that violate the company’s content policies, and labeling AI-generated responses as experimental. However, more must be done to adequately ensure that Google can remain a trustworthy and reliable source of information for Americans,” they added.
The lawmakers then posed several questions to Pichai.
“What existing fact-checking and content policies does Google extend to the AI Overviews feature? How does Google enforce these policies to prevent dissemination of misinformation and disinformation?” they asked.
The Democrats also inquired whether Google is working with “relevant government entities, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), to ensure that only accurate information is provided through AI Overviews, particularly with respect to information about voting and elections.”
CISA was discovered to have flagged social media posts questioning election integrity before the 2020 presidential election.
The letter was signed by Schiff and Reps. Henry C. Johnson, Jr. (D-GA), Donald S. Beyer Jr. (D-VA), Lori Trahan (D-MA), and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).
