Here’s what’s going on with Google’s funny explanations of made-up expressions

There's actually a lot of really good logic in Google AI's 'nonsense' explanations.

Apr 24, 2025 - 19:12

Google AI Overviews are confidently trying to explain nonsense phrases, to great hilarity.
Ideally this wouldn’t happen, because AI Overviews are only supposed to appear when Google’s confident in the quality of its output.
The line between new phrases and nonsense phrases is a fine one, though, and it’s easy to see the logic Google tries to use to divine meaning.

The internet is a sucker for a good fail, and we’ve certainly seen our fair share of them. Right now, AI is probably the easiest target around for embarrassing gaffes, whether we’re looking at AI pictures where hands have the wrong number of fingers, or AI-fueled search results confusing satire for fact. This week, Google finds itself in the hot seat as users discover how willing AI Overviews are to dream up fantastic explanations for nonsense phrases. Why is this happening, is it an actual problem, and can we expect to see it get any better? Google’s already stepping forward with some explanations.

If you haven’t heard about this phenomenon yet, people are asking Google Search to find the meaning behind various phrases. For actual idioms, this can be really useful, but the problem is that Google’s also pretty willing to dream up its own explanations for expressions that aren’t true idioms at all — just meaningless gibberish. Ask Google what “an empty cat is worth a dog’s ransom” means, and it will do its darndest to extract some semblance of meaning there, even if that’s squeezing blood from a stone.