Source: Radio New Zealand
The phone number for Sopheze Coffee Lounge has been offered up when people search for Timaru Hospital. Google Maps / Screenshot
A Timaru café’s phone has been ringing off the hook but unfortunately many aren’t seeking a top-notch toastie – instead they’re after a doctor.
Google’s Gemini Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool had been offering up the phone number for Sopheze Coffee Lounge when people searched for Timaru Hospital.
Sopheze Coffee Lounge manager Vanessa Keen said the problem started about six weeks ago.
Café staff noticed a big increase in hang-ups and wrong numbers.
“People would say ‘sorry, wrong number’ and hang up or people ringing… asking for radiology. I had one yesterday who wanted to confirm his appointment with me,” Keen said.
“We get about 15 to 20 phone calls a day.”
It took a couple of weeks to figure out the problem, she said.
“Then it clicked … I said to this lady on this phone ‘where did you find this number?’ and she said ‘Google, I googled Timaru Hospital and this is what came up’. I asked her to send the screenshots through to me and I sent them through last week to the local health board.”
It appeared the correct number came up if people searched for “Timaru Hospital”, but those searching “Timaru Hospital phone number” got a direct line to Sopheze.
The frequent calls were a unneeded disruption but Keen said she also worried getting the wrong number would add to people’s stress when they needed to contact the hospital.
Health New Zealand – South Canterbury posted on social media on Monday alerting people to the problem and asked Google to fix the issue.
Andrew Lensen, a senior lecturer in AI at Victoria University said it was common for AI summaries to contain errors.
“Sometimes it’s because when Google has gone through and scrapped these website their algorithms – their AI models – have got a bit confused or mismatched two pieces of information together. Sometimes it is what we call a hallucination where the model makes things up,” Lensen said.
“It is a bit strange but my best guess is that maybe these phone numbers were listed in a similar place, maybe a Timaru website or community page, and the model has mismatched that association.”
It was a reminder to treat AI summaries with caution, he said.
“When you look at the AI summary you’ll see that there are links in the summary to the Ministry of Health pages. If you click on those pages it will take you through, for example, to the Facebook page or the Ministry of Health page for Timaru. If you click on those pages you can find the number of those official websites,” Lensen said.
“Its just a good reminder that the summaries are often wrong. It even says that at the bottom of the summary.”
Getting errors corrected was not always straightforward either.
“These big tech companies tend to be quite hard to contact in terms of these types of errors. They are not overly concerned about it, to be frank. Sometimes the best way to get a change is probably getting someone like RNZ to publish on it because then Google will probably take note and adjust it,” he said.
There might be a contact form on Google’s website but it could be just a matter of waiting for the contact information to naturally update, he said.
Google said, in an emailed response, the issue was now fixed.
Google added people could give inaccurate information a downvote.
Health New Zealand South Canterbury group director of operations Rachel Mills said it regularly reviewed online information to ensure it was accurate and encouraged people to use official health websites.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand