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Google stops showing as many AI responses after backlash

No more pizza, glue, and small rocks for you

5/31/24 7:31AM

Google confirmed it’s showing fewer AI generated answers to user questions — a feature it rolled out broadly earlier this month and is already walking back after blowback from its wild results.

In a blog post repentantly titled “About last week,” Google’s head of search Liz Reid said the search giant made a number of technical improvements in areas “where we didn’t get it right.”

That includes showing less content generated from social media (sorry, glue pizza!), even fewer health-related results, and limited satire and humor content (sorry, eating at least one small rock!). The company is generally trying to do a better job of thwarting enterprising social media users and journalists by building “better detection mechanisms for nonsensical queries that shouldn’t show an AI Overview.”

Reid explained that the way an Onion article, “Geologists Recommend Eating At Least One Small Rock Per Day,” ended up being used for queries about eating rocks was because a geological software provider reposted it on its website (apparently the Onion used a photo of a company advisor in the article). And there’s not that much other info about eating rocks out there. Of course Google probably should have never offered what seem like definitive answers in those cases.

While Google still seems bullish on AI Overview — Reid’s post started out by stating that “User feedback shows that with AI Overviews, people have higher satisfaction with their search results” — it’s clear that Google has a lot of kinks to work out.

Figure’s robots just sorted packages for 200 hours straight

What started as a 10-hour human-versus-robot challenge turned into a continuous marathon shift spanning nine days of continuous work.

Jon Keegan13h

Rani Molla15h

Report: Uber considers full Delivery Hero takeover to take on DoorDash outside the US

Uber appears to be considering upping its competition with DoorDash outside the US, exploring a potential full takeover of Frankfurt-listed Delivery Hero, Bloomberg reports. Earlier this week the US-based ride-hailing service disclosed a 19.5% stake in the food delivery company, but now that could go higher.

The $11.8 billion German company could be particularly vulnerable to a takeover right now, with its CEO having recently stepped down following pressure from activist investors to sell off assets. A full acquisition would give Uber a massive foothold in over 60 countries to combat DoorDash’s European-focused Wolt unit.

Uber has been involved in a lot of deal-making of late, mostly in the autonomous vehicle space, where it now has more than 30 partnerships globally.

Uber extended its losses on the news and is currently down around 1.7%.

Uber Said to Study Full Takeover of European Rival Delivery Hero

Uber has been involved in a lot of deal-making of late, mostly in the autonomous vehicle space, where it now has more than 30 partnerships globally.

Uber extended its losses on the news and is currently down around 1.7%.

Rani Molla18h

Meta released a Reddit dupe. Reddit investors don’t like it.

Fresh on the heels of releasing a Snapchat dupe, which sent Snap down earlier this month, Meta seems to be meddling with Reddit, quietly releasing a Reddit-like Facebook app called Forum yesterday. After news of the “dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and the communities you care about,” Reddit’s stock is down 4.5% today.

Last month, Reddit’s earnings report handily beat analysts’ expectations, but it continues to struggle with the perception that bigger tech companies — including Meta — investing heavily in AI will eat its lunch. The stock is down nearly 40% year-to-date.

Jon Keegan5/21/26

Report: OpenAI’s Q1 revenue was $5.7 billion, beating Anthropic

The neck-and-neck race between OpenAI and Anthropic as the AI companies barrel toward their expected IPOs this year is shaking out some internal numbers for would-be investors to ponder.

The Information is reporting that OpenAI’s first-quarter revenue was ~$5.7 billion, about $1 billion ahead of Anthropic’s revenue for the same period.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Anthropic is on course to more than double its first-quarter revenue of $4.8 billion to $10.9 billion in the second quarter. It is not known what OpenAI is projecting for Q2.

Recently, The New York Times reported that Anthropic’s current fundraising round seeking to raise between $30 billion and $50 billion comes with a valuation of up to $950 billion, putting it ahead of OpenAI’s latest reported valuation of $850 billion.

OpenAI Held $1 Billion Revenue Lead Over Anthropic in First Quarter

Rani Molla5/21/26

Alphabet’s Waymos are still getting caught in floods after recall

Waymo, the self-driving subsidiary of Alphabet, has paused operations in Atlanta after a new report of a vehicle driving into a flooded roadway and getting stuck, TechCrunch reports. The news comes just weeks after the company recalled its fleet of nearly 4,000 driverless cars to deal with a previous flood incident in San Antonio, where the service is also paused.

After that incident, Waymo instituted an “interim remedy” to make the vehicles “exclude additional operating conditions that present an elevated risk of encountering a flooded, higherspeed roadway,” but added that it was still “developing the final remedy for this recall.”

As we’ve noted, Waymo has mostly kept its rollout — now public in 11 cities — to more temperate climates, as severe weather poses more challenges to autonomous vehicles.

Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods | TechCrunch