Google's 'AI Overviews' Cite YouTube For Health Queries More Than Any Medical Sites, Study Suggests (theguardian.com) 38
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Guardian:
Google's search feature AI Overviews cites YouTube more than any medical website when answering queries about health conditions, according to research that raises fresh questions about a tool seen by 2 billion people each month.
The company has said its AI summaries, which appear at the top of search results and use generative AI to answer questions from users, are "reliable" and cite reputable medical sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Mayo Clinic. However, a study that analysed responses to more than 50,000 health queries, captured using Google searches from Berlin, found the top cited source was YouTube. The video-sharing platform is the world's second most visited website, after Google itself, and is owned by Google. Researchers at SE Ranking, a search engine optimisation platform, found YouTube made up 4.43% of all AI Overview citations. No hospital network, government health portal, medical association or academic institution came close to that number, they said. "This matters because YouTube is not a medical publisher," the researchers wrote. "It is a general-purpose video platform...."
In one case that experts said was "dangerous" and "alarming", Google provided bogus information about crucial liver function tests that could have left people with serious liver disease wrongly thinking they were healthy. The company later removed AI Overviews for some but not all medical searches... Hannah van Kolfschooten, a researcher specialising in AI, health and law at the University of Basel who was not involved with the research, said: "This study provides empirical evidence that the risks posed by AI Overviews for health are structural, not anecdotal. It becomes difficult for Google to argue that misleading or harmful health outputs are rare cases.
"Instead, the findings show that these risks are embedded in the way AI Overviews are designed. In particular, the heavy reliance on YouTube rather than on public health authorities or medical institutions suggests that visibility and popularity, rather than medical reliability, is the central driver for health knowledge."
The company has said its AI summaries, which appear at the top of search results and use generative AI to answer questions from users, are "reliable" and cite reputable medical sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Mayo Clinic. However, a study that analysed responses to more than 50,000 health queries, captured using Google searches from Berlin, found the top cited source was YouTube. The video-sharing platform is the world's second most visited website, after Google itself, and is owned by Google. Researchers at SE Ranking, a search engine optimisation platform, found YouTube made up 4.43% of all AI Overview citations. No hospital network, government health portal, medical association or academic institution came close to that number, they said. "This matters because YouTube is not a medical publisher," the researchers wrote. "It is a general-purpose video platform...."
In one case that experts said was "dangerous" and "alarming", Google provided bogus information about crucial liver function tests that could have left people with serious liver disease wrongly thinking they were healthy. The company later removed AI Overviews for some but not all medical searches... Hannah van Kolfschooten, a researcher specialising in AI, health and law at the University of Basel who was not involved with the research, said: "This study provides empirical evidence that the risks posed by AI Overviews for health are structural, not anecdotal. It becomes difficult for Google to argue that misleading or harmful health outputs are rare cases.
"Instead, the findings show that these risks are embedded in the way AI Overviews are designed. In particular, the heavy reliance on YouTube rather than on public health authorities or medical institutions suggests that visibility and popularity, rather than medical reliability, is the central driver for health knowledge."
Google's Youtube Promotes Medical Quack Ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Google's Youtube Promotes Medical Quack Ads (Score:4, Insightful)
Google is a search engine, an advertisement company, and has a video company, so I don't think they should be trusted for medical anything.
This. Google owns search and Youtube. It's hardly surprising that their search site recommends their video site. What is surprising, and concerning, is that people give them any credibility.
seems pretty credible (Score:1)
All footage from the incident shows the victim, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, with his phone in his hand the entire time, never once is he seen with the handgun - he was legally carrying - in his hand. The only person seen with Pretti’s gun is an agent who removed it from his waistband before the first shots were fired. Everything suggests he was unarmed when shot by agents with Border Patrol and Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE).
They're coming for your guns !
They literally took away his gun. And then executed him.
Lucky the Republicans are against that kind of thing and will be rallying around all the amendments and things and taking up arms and doing stuff. Don't tread on me!
Oh sorry, you're a bit busy licking the boots of the oppressors. never mind then.
Re: (Score:2)
Seen any ads on Youtube?
Not once, but I hear about them all the time. How do people manage to see them is a mystery.
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That you don't own a phone is a mystery. Blocking Youtube ads on a phone requires patching and installing no less than 2 different background services to run on an Android device, and simply isn't possible on iPhone. Unless you watch Youtube in a browser on a phone in which case there's probably something medically wrong with you if you put yourself through that kind of UI misery.
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and simply isn't possible on iPhone
Why would you use a piece of hardware that is presumptuous enough to not let you control it fully?
requires patching and installing no less than 2 different background services to run on an Android device,
Not really.
Re: (Score:2)
That's news to me. Between NewPipe and Grayjay it's easy to watch YouTube without being swamped by ads. Both are available in F-Droid. Don't need a rooted phone for any of that either. And with GrayJay you'll often find that many of your content creators post to other services like Odyssey too. Nice to have it all in one place.
Facebook makes billions off of scam ads too (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Google is a search engine, an advertisement company, and has a video company, so I don't think they should be trusted for medical anything.
It's like RFK, Jr saying you shouldn't take medical advice from him even though he is supposed to be the top medical professional in the country.
Re: (Score:2)
No, actually not at all alike.
The user's statement was referring their opinion of another entity, and included accurate description of the key things Google does.
Note the phrasing: "so I don't think they..."
Your useless and pointless attempt to inject politics into this references a hypothetical focused on RFK Jr, trying to draw a direct parallel, when there is nothing there.
You posted:
"It's like RFK, Jr saying you shouldn't take medical advice from him.....", yet the only individual and male subje
It worked for me (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Which youtube site are you using, xhamster or xvideos?
Re: It worked for me (Score:2)
Or the one with the name being an adjective that describes the state of having no mother?
Re: (Score:3)
How does a skincare routine solved diabetes? I'd understand gokkun videos though admittedly the thought of it can leave a bad taste in the mouth, but a topical ointment application to solve diabetes would revolutionise the industry.
Re: It worked for me (Score:3)
Easy: you need to eat the skin care products, which are high fat. And at the same time drastically cut down on carbs... voila, a keto diet! :-D
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Easy: you need to eat the skin care products, which are high fat.
Yes at which case it changes name from bukkake to gokkun
"reputable medical sources" (Score:3)
Google's becoming irrelevant (Score:3)
What's even worse, every question you now ask is answered mostly with video links. Why? Because of ads, of course. It is increasingly more difficult to get a simple text answer. They want you to watch a 5-10 minute video for a 5 second section where the question is actually answered. Just so that they can use you to bump someone's engagement and ad scores.
This makes Google increasing more difficult to work with and significantly reduces it's value these days. Search engines used to be all about efficiency and quick access to information. Whoever picks up that old goal of actually being useful, will score big in the next decade.
Don't Google medical advice (Score:2)
Neither with nor without AI summaries you should try to use Google to find medical advice.
YouTube is a soapbox (Score:4, Informative)
Not a source.
Whenever AI, or slashdot posters, or friends asking "is this legit?" cite YouTube as a source, the answer is almost guaranteed to be NO it is not legit.
YouTube is where people go to spout their views when they are promoting something. If you've got facts to share, it will show up on reputable sites that aren't pushing an agenda, and it won't be in video form.
YouTube isn't the primary problem, per the study (Score:3)
The Guardian highlights the "prominence" of YouTube recommendations because it's attention-grabbing and bury the actual number -- 4% -- in the fourth paragraph, but if the other 96% of the responses were from reputable medicals sites, and if the YouTube videos were produced by doctors or scientists who are careful about their information and sources -- there are lots of them on YouTube -- this would be fine.
The actually interesting part of the study results is that while 34% of responses came from trusted medical sources and 1% from government institutions and academic journals, 65% came from "websites that lack formal review or evidence-based safeguards". That 65% is a lot more concerning, IMO, than the 4% from YouTube.
What would make such a study really interesting is if the responses were vetted for accuracy and reliability, rather than just categorized by source. That would be a lot harder to do, of course.
"medical" websites (Score:3)
"Medical" websites, such as Cleveland Clinic, for example, have valid information, but it is invariably extremely superficial, and generally not very helpful, with the most common advice being "see a doctor." If you want better info, ask google for specific citations to original peer reviewed literature.
Data scraping pond scum (Score:2)