Fake Website Spewing Out AI Slop Tops Google Search Results
Among the news sites reporting on SpaceX’s latest rocket explosion this week was “Science Magazine”, a website where all the content, including the pictures, is AI-generated.
Instead of publishing real videos and images of rocket debris raining down over the Caribbean, Science Magazine instead went with an image of a spacecraft more akin to the Millennium Falcon than SpaceX’s starship.
The image is clearly AI-generated and created for the sole purpose of baiting engagement. It wouldn’t usually merit note until an investigation by Futurism discovered Science Magazine’s stories were ranking high on Google.
“Two of Science Magazine’s Starship stories were promoted by Google in its Top Stories results for the simple query ‘SpaceX Starship’,” Futurism reports. “Both of the top-ranking Science Magazine articles are complete with fake, AI-generated images. They were interspersed alongside news hits from credible publications including Space.com, NBC News, and NASASpaceFlight.”
Futurism flagged the website to Google which apparently took swift action and dramatically downranked Science Magazine’s search ranking to the point where it can’t even be found when typing in the titles of specific articles.
“Our policies prohibit producing content at scale for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings — whether automation, humans or a combination are involved,” a Google spokesperson tells Futurism. “While we don’t comment on actions taken against individual sites, when we identify violations of our policies, we take action, which may include manual removal. We go to great lengths to fight webspam in our search results, and 99 percent of Search visits are spam-free.”
Science Magazine also ran stories by authors who were entirely AI-generated and published words created by a ChatGPT prompt. Here is the opening for its report about the recent Starship launch which offers precious little real information.
“A low roar builds on the horizon, heralding the dawn of a new chapter in space exploration. The much-anticipated launch of the Starship, a marvel of modern engineering, edges closer, capturing the imagination of dreamers and doers alike,” is what the article opens with. “As this colossal vessel prepares to touch the heavens, it carries with it the hopes of breaking through the boundaries of what was once deemed impossible.”
AI Slop is Becoming More of an Issue
The proliferation of AI content has been well documented but the sheer scale of the issue has led some to declare they “have had enough.”
Designers have complained that the influx of AI-generated images on stock photo websites is “slowly ruining” them and Science Magazine isn’t the first outlet to get AI content ranked highly on Google.
