Google AI taken for a ride by April Fools’ Day joke

Cwmbran in Wales holds the Guinness World Record for the most roundabouts—at least according to Google AI Overviews. Except that's not actually true...

Apr 8, 2025 - 16:06

Google AI taken for a ride by April Fools’ Day joke

Cwmbran in Wales, a town with a population of just under 50,000, holds the Guinness World Record for the most roundabouts—at least according to Google AI Overviews.

Except that’s not actually true…

Ben Black has been publishing lighthearted fake stories on April Fools’ Day for his community news site Cwmbran Life since 2018. The April Fools include the erection of a Hollywood-style sign on a mountain, and the creation of a nudist cold-water swimming club at a lake.

In 2020, Black published a fake story saying Cwmbran had been recognized by Guinness World Records for having the highest number of roundabouts per square kilometer.

He fabricated a random number of roundabouts, added a quote from a fictitious resident, and clearly stated that the “news” was an April Fool’s Day joke several hours later.

So it came as quite a surprise when Black discovered that Google AI Overviews picked up this story as real news recently.

The thing about April Fools’ Day is that it is treated very differently to every other day online. Normal news outlets publish deliberately fake news stories and we, as people with knowledge of April Fools Day, can use that to assess if something is true. Google AI obviously didn’t get that memo.

As Black said:

“It’s not a dangerous story, but it shows how fake news can easily spread even if it’s from a trusted news source.”

Google AI Overviews has been under scrutiny since testing last year after generating false information, including advising people on the minimum required pebbles to eat in a day or using gasoline to cook spaghetti faster.

Black decided not to publish an April Fools’ prank this year due to his busy schedule and his recent experience with Google, which has made him hesitant about future pranks.

We feel similar about online pranks coming from us, a cybersecurity company that you can trust, so we opted out of April Fools’ Day this year too.