“I am aghast”: Google Search AI said a former Conan Exiles dev’s personal phone was Funcom’s office number, leading to irate complaint call

Google’s latest AI mishap saw a developer’s personal number listed as a company’s official contact line.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

What you need to know

Google’s experimental AI Overview search feature has come under fire for giving users bizarre results and suggestions that range from shockingly inaccurate to downright harmful, and its latest snafu has led to the erroneous publication of a game developer’s personal phone number.

Recently, Skybound Games senior environment artist Rogelio Delgadoposted a thread on X (Twitter)in which he recounted an irate phone call he received from a child’s parent. The father contacted Delgado to complain about content inConan Exiles— an M-rated, 2017 survival open world game his son plays that was made by theDune: Awakeningstudio Funcom — and noted he’d found Delgado’s number online because of his previous employment at Funcom over eight years ago.

After a “vaguely combative and awkward conversation,” the caller eventually apologized, explaining that his assistant found the number for him and that he wasn’t aware Delgado no longer worked at Funcom. Shortly afterwards, he texted Delgado a screenshot that showed Google’s AI Overview listing his personal phone number asFuncom’s main corporate office. And as you’d expect, Delgado was (rightfully) livid about the mishap.

but how google AI made the leap that THAT was the number for the CORPERATE OFFICE LOCATED IN NORWAY… AND TELLING PEOPLE WITH ITS WHOLE CHEST. WTFI am aghast. @GoogleAI GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER 9/9October 10, 2024

“My ONLY guess on how this happened is that I have my phone number on my resume that also has me listed as a past employee of Funcom,” he wrote in his social media thread. “…but how google AI made the leap that THAT was the number for the CORPERATE OFFICE LOCATED IN NORWAY… AND TELLING PEOPLE WITH ITS WHOLE CHEST. WTF. I am aghast. @GoogleAI GET YOUR SH*T TOGETHER.”

•Best Xbox / PC headsets in 2024•Best upcoming Xbox/PC games•Best Xbox controllers•Best Xbox accessories•Best small gaming PCs•Best gaming laptops in 2024

Commenters figured out that theAIactually pulled the number from an erroneous listing on the prospecting business platform LeadIQ, but even so, it should have drawn information from Funcom’s public contact information page. Frankly, this blunder was catastrophic, and it’s not a stretch to worry that seriously dangerous situations could occur if Google’s AI made mistakes like it with physical home addresses or office locations.

As I said before, this is also far from the first controversyGooglehas brought about with its AI ventures as it works to challengeMicrosoft Copilot. Earlier this year,AI Overview was fiercely criticized for pushing absurd search resultsthat included telling people to add glue to their pizza sauce, lauding rocks as a healthy snack, andrecommending suicide to depressed individuals, among others. And while some of the queries that led to these answers were likely fine-tuned to spit out social media engagement bait, several were traced to old Reddit comments — and no matter what, there should be measures in place to stop results like this from generating.

🎃The best early Black Friday deals🦃

All of these debacles illustrate the importance of curated, high-quality sources and information for AI language models, filters that ensure dangerous or grossly inaccurate information isn’t shared with users, and failures on Google’s end to adequately integrate both into its search assistant. If AI is here to stay, I hope issues like these don’t continue happening for long. I can’t exactly say I’m confident they won’t, though positive experiences with other models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot despite my best efforts to trick them do make me hopeful.

Get the Windows Central Newsletter

All the latest news, reviews, and guides for Windows and Xbox diehards.

Despite the gravity of the AI error here, it did at least lead toa pretty funny commentfrom Funcom chief creative officer and Dune: Awakening creative director Joel Bylos: “On the other hand, thanks for taking the heat for me man :).” There’s always a silver lining.

Brendan Lowry is a Windows Central writer and Oakland University graduate with a burning passion for video games, of which he’s been an avid fan since childhood. He’s been writing for Team WC since the summer of 2017, and you’ll find him doing news, editorials, reviews, and general coverage on everything gaming, Xbox, and Windows PC. His favorite game of all time is probably NieR: Automata, though Elden Ring, Fallout: New Vegas, and Team Fortress 2 are in the running, too. When he’s not writing or gaming, there’s a good chance he’s either watching an interesting new movie or TV show or actually going outside for once.Follow him on X(Twitter).