'Dangerous and alarming': Google removes some of its AI summaries after users' health put at risk

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Sun 11 Jan 2026 02.00 EST
Last modified on Sun 11 Jan 2026 04.42 EST


Google has removed some of its artificial intelligence health summaries after a Guardian investigation found people were being put at risk of harm by false and misleading information.

The company has said its AI Overviews, which use generative AI to provide snapshots of essential information about a topic or question, are “helpful” and “reliable”. But some of the summaries, which appear at the top of search results, served up inaccurate health information, putting users at risk of harm.

In one case that experts described as “dangerous” and “alarming”, Google provided bogus information about crucial liver function tests that could leave people with serious liver disease wrongly thinking they were healthy.

Typing “what is the normal range for liver blood tests” served up masses of numbers, little context and no accounting for nationality, sex, ethnicity or age of patients, the Guardian found.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/11/google-ai-overviews-health-guardian-investigation

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This "AI" shit is NOT ready for prime time. It needs years of testing and an END to what is apparently a lack of meaningful and well thought-out and structured filters for information-gathering, where instead, they are sucking up vast, often irrelevant, incoherent and random pieces of information, slapping it all together, and calling it "intelligent".

[bucolic_frolic]

1. I find Google AI arrogant, inaccurate, argumentative

They immediately say NO! you're wrong, then when you point out the facts, they retreat a little. Not ready for prime time. Terrible on history inquiries imho. Much prefer Claude, Perp, Venice, ChattyG.

[RockCreek]

2. I agree completely with your comments at the end of the post

[creon]

3. A I is GIGO

It is GIGO.
It is that. pure and simple.

[Javaman]

4. Some. nt

[EarlG]

5. It's weird how big corps think that slapping the word "AI" on everything means people won't notice their product is shit

Google used to be the best search engine out there. Now it produces results that are frequently incorrect, and as seen in the article above, potentially life threatening. (And they haven't even started seeding these overviews with paid advertising yet, at which point the results will be even more worthless. Having heart palpitations? Let our AI explain to you in an extremely convincing voice why the best medicine is Coca-Cola.)

But because they slap the word "AI" on it, we're all supposed to thoughtfully stroke our chins and assume that "the future is here," and now all we have to do is wait for that future to truly arrive and unburden us from our daily grind. Meanwhile their products get worse and worse, electricity costs go up, the environment is further ruined, and billions upon billions of dollars disappear upwards into the pockets of the already mega-wealthy.

The sad part is that depending on what you use it for, machine learning can be extremely useful. But what the big corps are doing is throwing everything under the same "AI" umbrella, and forcing the tech to be used in situations where it is not useful, to do things it is not good at.

I wonder how long it will take before the majority of people associate the label "AI" with the thought, "shit, broken product, don't use it."

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. I was amused to see the ".ai" internet suffix belonging to Anguilla as "valuable" since AI companies want it

to sell their wares on. The moment I see something comes from a .ai page, I know I can't trust it, so I don't bother even visiting it.

[highplainsdem]

7. I agree that a lot of machine learning can be extremely useful. But I wouldn't include generative AI in

that, for lots of reasons, and unfortunately that's the type of AI being forced into almost everything.

News story this morning on Google adding more AI to advertising and shopping:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143596794

[ToxMarz]

9. It's like when you see a bottled water labeled "Gluten Free!"

[BumRushDaShow]

12. AND "Caffeine free"

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Way back before Google

I used to use Yahoo's search engine (and occasionally "Ask Jeeves" ), which was eventually drowned in a too-busy page of pop-ups and other stuff. When Google appeared with its clean white page, colorful logo, and a simple search box, it was refreshing.

Now I'm back to having to go to Yahoo again (as well as Bing), which saves me from the hassle of the monetization of Google that its parent (Alphabet) has really gone full bore on, particularly with its recent overt pushing of Meta sources to the top of searches (I guess Zuck paid a pretty penny for that access). Sadly, some of the others like DuckDuckGo are limited out of necessity due to $$$.

[ToxMarz]

8. Where AI is perfectly suited is the modern day PT Barnum's

"Theres a sucker born every minute".

Now we just have a new way to find them.

[Raftergirl]

10. Don't get medical information from any internet search. I've seen more batshit crazy shite than minutes I have

been alive.

We have these people called Doctors that spend years training in their fields to give one medical diagnoses, interpret tests, and formulate treatment plans.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. Unfortunately, with access to doctors now being killed off due to a lack of health insurance thanks to the GOP

more people WILL be going to "the (AI) internet doctor". I.e., most doctors will not see you unless you hand their receptionist a "proof of health insurance" card.

[Vinca]

13. I've been having some back pain so I googled a question about whether a 15 year old hip replacement

might somehow deteriorate and cause back pain. AI gave me a response that began something like "A hip replacement in a person who is 15 years old . . ." And it was downhill from there.

[Pluvious]

15. The way these fancy search engines work...

... when parsing out a natural language query, is to break the sentence down into "tokens" then search its data base for matching patterns to the tokens.

So the phrase: "...a 15 year old hip replacement" gets transformed to the two tokens:
"A 15 year old" and "hip replacement"

It is programmed to re-state the question it's responding to in the format it had been internally tokenized, which hopefully will make clear to the user the specific and unambiguous question it's is answering.

When you compose a query to ask a search engine, it's helpful to do it in such a way that there is no possible ambiguity when it performs the parsing-out of the token phrases.

So something like: "Is it possible that a person will experience back pain caused by a hip replacement operation which had been performed 15 years prior?"

I hope this helps

[Pluvious]

16. Just for grins, I submitted the reworded question to Gemini...

As in all cases of search results, you should examine the sources that they include so you can be sure that the summary is not getting something wrong.

Here is the response in returned, leaving out the reference sources of course:

It is absolutely possible. While a 15-year-old hip replacement might seem like "old news," the way your hip, pelvis, and spine interact is a lifelong partnership. In the medical world, this is often referred to as **Hip-Spine Syndrome**.

After 15 years, there are several reasons why an old hip replacement could be the "silent" culprit behind new back pain:

### 1. The "Chain Reaction" (Altered Biomechanics)

Your body is an interconnected chain. If a 15-year-old hip implant has begun to wear down or the surrounding muscles have weakened, your body will instinctively change how you walk or stand to protect the joint. This shift in **gait** or **posture** forces your lower back (lumbar spine) to overcompensate.

* **The Result * Your back takes on mechanical stress it wasn't designed for, leading to muscle strain or accelerated disc wear.

### 2. Component Wear or Loosening

Most modern hip replacements are designed to last 15–25 years. At the 15-year mark, the artificial materials (polyethylene, metal, or ceramic) can begin to show wear.

* **Micro-instability * Even if the hip itself doesn't "hurt," tiny amounts of loosening can cause a slight tilt in your pelvis.
* **Back Connection * A tilted pelvis changes the alignment of your spine, which can pinch nerves or cause "referred pain" that feels like it's coming from your back.

### 3. Leg Length Discrepancy

Over time, as an implant settles or the other (natural) hip ages and loses cartilage, a slight difference in leg length can develop. Even a few millimeters of difference can act like walking with one shoe on and one shoe off. This creates a permanent "lean" that manifests as chronic lower back pain.

### 4. Shared Nerve Pathways

The nerves that serve the hip and the lower back are closely related. Sometimes, what feels like "back pain" is actually **referred pain** from the hip joint itself. Conversely, a hip that has lost its full range of motion over 15 years can "lock" the pelvis, forcing the lower back to do all the bending and twisting, leading to inflammation.

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### What should you look for?

If you are experiencing back pain after 15 years, consider these "red flags" that point toward the hip:

* Pain that is worse when getting in/out of a car or putting on socks.
* A noticeable "limp" or a feeling that one leg is shorter.
* Pain that radiates into the groin or the side of the thigh (this is often hip pain disguised as back pain).

### Next Steps

Since your implant is 15 years old, it is reaching the age where a "tune-up" or evaluation is standard.

**Would you like me to help you prepare a list of specific questions to ask an orthopedic surgeon to determine if the pain is coming from the hip or the spine?**

If you wish to refer to the sources of this summary, just paste my rewarded question into Gemini and go to the bottom where it says sources.

Best wishes to you...

[Vinca]

17. Thanks for taking the time to do that.

I'm seeing another doctor on Thursday and the back pain may be bowel related rather than hip related. Unfortunately. I've got a colonoscopy prep in my future.