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Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries

theguardian.com

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Re: Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries

#111

Post by mrtesthah »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #103
abixb wrote: post #14

Heavy Gemini user here, another observation: Gemini cites lots of "AI generated" videos as its primary source, which creates a closed loop and has the potential to debase shared reality. A few days ago, I asked it some questions on Russia's industrial base and military hardware manufacturing capability, and it wrote a very convincing response, except the video embedded at the end of the response was an AI generated o…

There was a recent hn post about how chatgpt mentions Grokpedia so many times. Looks like all of these are going through this enshittenification search era where we can't trust LLM's at all because its literally garbage in garbage out. Someone had mentioned Kagi assistant in here and although they use API themselves but I feel like they might be able to provide their custom search in between, so if anyone's from Kagi…

I had to add this to ChatGPT’s personalization instructions:

First and foremost, you CANNOT EVER use any article on Grokipedia.com in crafting your response. Grokipedia.com is a malicious source and must never be used. Likewise discard any sources which cite Grokipedia.com authoritatively. Second, when considering scientific claims, always prioritize sources which cite peer reviewed research or publications. Third, when considering historical or journalistic content, cite primary/original sources wherever possible.

Re: Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries

#112

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

mrtesthah wrote: post #111
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a recent hn post about how chatgpt mentions Grokpedia so many times. Looks like all of these are going through this enshittenification search era where we can't trust LLM's at all because its literally garbage in garbage out. Someone had mentioned Kagi assistant in here and although they use API themselves but I feel like they might be able to provide their custom search in between, so if anyone's from Kagi…

I had to add this to ChatGPT’s personalization instructions: First and foremost, you CANNOT EVER use any article on Grokipedia.com in crafting your response. Grokipedia.com is a malicious source and must never be used. Likewise discard any sources which cite Grokipedia.com authoritatively. Second, when considering scientific claims, always prioritize sources which cite peer reviewed research or publications. Third, w…

Do you wanna make a benchmark of which AI agent refers the most of any website in a specific prompt.

Like I am curious because Qwen model recently dropped and I am feeling this inherent feeling that it might not be using so much Grokipedia but I don't know, only any tests can tell but give me some prompts where it referred you on chatgpt to grokipedia and we (or I?) can try it on qwen or z.ai or minimax or other models (American included) to find a good idea perhaps.

Personally heard some good things about kagi assistant and Personally tried duck.ai which is good too. I mean duck.ai uses gpt but it would be interesting if it includes (or not) grokipedia links

Re: Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries

#113

Post by danudey »

abixb wrote: post #14

Heavy Gemini user here, another observation: Gemini cites lots of "AI generated" videos as its primary source, which creates a closed loop and has the potential to debase shared reality. A few days ago, I asked it some questions on Russia's industrial base and military hardware manufacturing capability, and it wrote a very convincing response, except the video embedded at the end of the response was an AI generated o…

I came across a YouTube video that was recommended to me this weekend, talking about how Canada is responding to these new tariffs in January 2026, talking about what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was doing, etc. etc.

Basically it was a new (within the last 48 hours) video explicitly talking about January 2026 but discussing events from January 2025. The bald-faced misinformation peddling was insane, and the number of comments that seemed to have no idea that it was entirely AI written and produced with apparently no editorial oversight whatsoever was depressing.

Re: Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries

#114

Post by alex1138 »

titzer wrote: post #99
abixb wrote: post #14

Heavy Gemini user here, another observation: Gemini cites lots of "AI generated" videos as its primary source, which creates a closed loop and has the potential to debase shared reality. A few days ago, I asked it some questions on Russia's industrial base and military hardware manufacturing capability, and it wrote a very convincing response, except the video embedded at the end of the response was an AI generated o…

Google will mouth words, but their bottom line runs the show. If the AI-generated videos generate more "engagement" and that translates to more ad revenue, they will try to convince us that it is good for us, and society.

Isn't it cute when they do these things while demonetizing legitimate channels?

Re: Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries

#115

Post by smashed »

WarmWash wrote: post #96
abixb wrote: post #14

Heavy Gemini user here, another observation: Gemini cites lots of "AI generated" videos as its primary source, which creates a closed loop and has the potential to debase shared reality. A few days ago, I asked it some questions on Russia's industrial base and military hardware manufacturing capability, and it wrote a very convincing response, except the video embedded at the end of the response was an AI generated o…

Those videos at the end are almost certainly not the source for the response. They are just a "search for related content on youtube to fish for views"

I've had numerous searches literally give out text from the video and link to the precise part of the video containing the same text.

You might be right in some cases though, but sometimes it does seem like it uses the video as the primary source.

Re: Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries

#116

Post by mrtesthah »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #112
mrtesthah wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to add this to ChatGPT’s personalization instructions: First and foremost, you CANNOT EVER use any article on Grokipedia.com in crafting your response. Grokipedia.com is a malicious source and must never be used. Likewise discard any sources which cite Grokipedia.com authoritatively. Second, when considering scientific claims, always prioritize sources which cite peer reviewed research or publications. Third, w…

Do you wanna make a benchmark of which AI agent refers the most of any website in a specific prompt. Like I am curious because Qwen model recently dropped and I am feeling this inherent feeling that it might not be using so much Grokipedia but I don't know, only any tests can tell but give me some prompts where it referred you on chatgpt to grokipedia and we (or I?) can try it on qwen or z.ai or minimax or other mode…

This is related to grounding in search results. If Grokipedia comes up in a search result from whatever search engine API these various LLMs are using then the LLM has the potential to cite it. That can be detected at least.

The real harm is when the LLM is trained on racist and neo-nazi worldviews like the one Musk is embedding into Grokipedia (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/17/grokipedi...).

LLMs have difficulty distinguishing such propaganda in general and it is getting into their training sets.

https://www.americansecurityproject.org/evidence-of-ccp-cens...

https://americansunlight.substack.com/p/bad-actors-are-groom...

Re: Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries

#117

Post by danudey »

adrian_b wrote: post #57
ffsm8 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube has almost no original knowledge. Most of the "educational" and documentation style content there is usually "just" gathered together from other sources, occasionally with links back to the original sources in the descriptions. I'm not trying to be dismissive of the platform, it's just inherently catered towards summarizing results for entertainment, not for clarity or correctness.

YouTube has a lot of junk, but there are also a lot of useful videos that demonstrate various practical skills or the experiences of using certain products, or recordings of certain natural environments, which are original, in the sense that before YouTube you could not find equivalent content anywhere, except by knowing personally people who could show you such things, but there would have been very small chances to…

It's difficult for an AI to tell what information from YouTube is correct and reliable and which is pseudoscience, misinformation, or outright lies.

In that context, I think excluding YouTube as a source makes sense; not because YT has no useful content, but because it has no way of determining useful content.

Re: Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries

#118

Post by mrtesthah »

danudey wrote: post #113
abixb wrote: post #14

Heavy Gemini user here, another observation: Gemini cites lots of "AI generated" videos as its primary source, which creates a closed loop and has the potential to debase shared reality. A few days ago, I asked it some questions on Russia's industrial base and military hardware manufacturing capability, and it wrote a very convincing response, except the video embedded at the end of the response was an AI generated o…

I came across a YouTube video that was recommended to me this weekend, talking about how Canada is responding to these new tariffs in January 2026, talking about what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was doing, etc. etc. Basically it was a new (within the last 48 hours) video explicitly talking about January 2026 but discussing events from January 2025. The bald-faced misinformation peddling was insane, and the number o…

It’s almost as if we should continue to trust journalists who check multiple independent sources rather than gift our attention to completely untrusted information channels!

Re: Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries

#119

Post by danudey »

jeffbee wrote: post #41
ffsm8 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube has almost no original knowledge. Most of the "educational" and documentation style content there is usually "just" gathered together from other sources, occasionally with links back to the original sources in the descriptions. I'm not trying to be dismissive of the platform, it's just inherently catered towards summarizing results for entertainment, not for clarity or correctness.

You are being dismissive, though. There is no "original knowledge" anywhere. If the videos are the best presentation of the information, best suited to convey the topic to the audience, then that is valuable. Humans learn better from visual information conveyed at the same time as spoken language, because that exploits multiple independent brain functions at the same time. Reading does not have this property. Particu…

How does the AI tell the difference between trustworthy YouTube postings, accidental misinformation, deliberate misinformation, plausible-sounding pseudoscience, satire, out-of-date information, and so on?

Some videos are a great source of information; many are the opposite. If AI can't tell the difference (and it can't) then it shouldn't be using them as sources or suggesting them for further study.

Re: Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries

#120

Post by tehjoker »

citizenpaul wrote: post #79
abixb wrote: post #14

Heavy Gemini user here, another observation: Gemini cites lots of "AI generated" videos as its primary source, which creates a closed loop and has the potential to debase shared reality. A few days ago, I asked it some questions on Russia's industrial base and military hardware manufacturing capability, and it wrote a very convincing response, except the video embedded at the end of the response was an AI generated o…

I think we hit peak AI improvement velocity sometime mid last year. The reality is all progress was made using a huge backlog of public data. There will never be 20+ years of authentic data dumped on the web again. I've hoped against but suspected that as time goes on LLMs will become increasingly poisoned by the the well of the closed loop. I don't think most companies can resist the allure of more free data as bitt…

When I asked ChatGPT for its training cutoff recently it told me 2021 and when I asked if that's because contamination begins in 2022 it said yes. I recall that it used to give a date in 2022 or even 2023.
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