Google Image Search Results are Filled with AI-Generated, Misleading Images —Users Complain

| Updated on October 14, 2024

Recently, creative users have been sharing screenshots of AI images mixed with real photos on Google, claiming that AI images are spoiling Google Image search results.

It all started when an X user, @notengopris, shared a screenshot showing fifteen images of baby peacocks, where only four were real images while the rest were AI-generated.

When we did our search on Google with the ‘baby peacock’ query, we also found several AI-generated results.

Baby peacock Google image search results

Initially, someone on the internet made a video of a baby peacock and marked it as AI; however, soon, another user posted that baby peacock, claiming it was a real peacock, which eventually tricked some users into believing it.

Many creative users on Reddit have been expressing their disappointment over AI images infiltrating the website they used for inspiration. 

For various artists and photographers, Google serves as a crucial source of reference for their creative works, but with such results, finding quality references is becoming hard.

This is not the first time an AI image has risen to the top of Google; last year it was a bizarre imagined selfie of Tiananmen Square’s Tank Man and the fake photos of the singer Israel Kamakawiwoʻole’.

This problem also surfaced recently after AI-generated photos claiming to show victims went viral during Hurricane Helene.

With such fake images taking over Google results, millions of people are being tricked, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Even the AI image detectors and various systems are failing to detect such infiltration, causing helplessness in users.

Eventually, users are questioning the potential impact of media and feelings of betrayal after being deceived by fake imagery.

Akriti Rana

Tech Journalist