People are Googling fake sayings to see AI Overviews explain them - and it's hilarious

Google's AI Overviews are making headlines once again, and not for the first time. Remember those bizarre recipes like glue pizza and gasoline spaghetti that went viral about a year ago? Well, it seems Google's AI-powered search summaries are back in the spotlight, and this time, it's for generating fake idioms.

Here's how it works: head over to Google and search for a made-up idiom. Keep it simple and don't ask for an explanation or backstory. Just type something like "A barking cat can't put out a fire," "You can't make grape jelly from an avocado," or "Never give your pig a dictionary." Adding "meaning" at the end might help, too.

What's fascinating is that Google will not only confirm that your invented saying is real, but it will also concoct a definition and an origin story. The results can be downright hilarious.

The Duckdog Test

Curious to see if this theory held water, I took to Google and searched for a phrase my coworker coined about her dog, Duckdog: "A duckdog never blinks twice."

Google's AI promptly responded, explaining that this humorous phrase, not meant to be taken literally, signified that "a duck dog, or a duck-like dog, is so focused that it never blinks even twice." It even spun a plausible tale: some ducks sleep with one eye open, so a dog hunting a duck must be even more vigilant.

Impressed, I searched the same phrase again, only to find the story had morphed entirely. Now, the saying meant something so unusual or unbelievable that it was hard to accept, even when presented as fact. It was tied to a duck-dog hybrid, of all things!

Another search yielded yet another explanation, and you can see it above, along with the star of the fake idiom himself.

While Google's AI Overviews can be handy for quick answers, this trend shows they're not always reliable. So, take those AI-generated snippets with a grain of salt.

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