- If you Google “Israel Kamakawiwoʻole” right now, you’ll see AI images in the top spots.
- They’re realistic, but not flawless: The AI images show him playing a guitar, but he was famous for playing the ukulele.
- It’s the latest sign that AI-generated art is seeping into the search engine.
If you’re struggling to differentiate AI-generated images from real ones, you’re not alone. An AI-generated image of the late Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwoʻole is currently showing up as the top search result on Google when you search his name.
Ethan Mollick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, spotted the change and shared a screenshot of it on X on Sunday.
“Seriously, don’t trust anything you see online anymore. Faking stuff is trivial. You cannot tell the difference,” he wrote.
Business Insider searched for “Israel Kamakawiwoʻole” on Sunday evening and found the AI-generated images continuing to appear as the top search results.
It isn’t just AI generated text that is starting to bleed over into search results.
The main image if you do a Google search for Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwoʻole (whose version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow you have probably hear) is a Midjourney creation right from Reddit. pic.twitter.com/VdZmuUAwCK
— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) November 27, 2023
But the images are not without flaws.
Noah Giansiracusa, a professor at Bentley University, pointed out on X that the AI-generated images show Kamakawiwoʻole playing a guitar. The musician was known for playing the ukulele.
“Google’s got to up its game to keep AI shit out of the top results like this,” Giansiracusa wrote.
Kamakawiwoʻole was famous for his acoustic and heartfelt rendition of Judy Garland’s “Over the Rainbow.” He died in 1997 at the age of 38.
The AI-generated images of Kamakawiwoʻole were first posted on Reddit in July, in a community dedicated to the AI image-generating tool Midjourney. The images didn’t cause much of a stir at the time, garnering only nine comments and 90 upvotes.
This isn’t the first time Google has presented AI-generated images as top results on its search engine.
In September, 404 Media reported that an AI-generated image of the Tiananmen Square “tank man” topped Google’s search results, and also originated from the Midjourney Reddit community. The fictional image showed the “tank man” posing for a selfie in front of a tank. Google told 404 Media a day later that it had removed the AI-generated image from search results.
People searching for legendary artists Edward Hopper and Johannes Vermeer have also found AI-generated images popping up as top results, according to science media outlet Futurism.
In May, Google announced it would be rolling out a tool that provides more information about image search results, so users can more easily discern authentic images from fake ones.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside regular business hours.
