Google announced on Friday that it had removed an inaccurate response from its new artificial intelligence feature, which incorrectly stated that Barack Obama was the first Muslim US president. The error appeared in the “AI Overview” summary when users queried, “how many Muslim presidents has the US had?”
The incorrect answer was flagged by users on social media platform X and verified by The National. A Google representative confirmed via email, “This particular overview violated our policies, and we’ve taken it down.”
Despite this incident, the AI Overview feature correctly responded that the US has not had a Muslim president when the same query was entered without a question mark. Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, is a practicing Christian. Right-wing conspiracy theorists have falsely claimed for years that he secretly practiced Islam.
The AI-generated summary feature represents one of the most significant changes to Google’s search engine in 25 years. It was launched in the US last week after a testing period in the UK.
Google is committed to improving the accuracy of its AI-generated responses and ensuring that all information adheres to its stringent content policies.