Google Search briefly displayed incorrect information suggesting that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had died, after false information entered Google's automated search systems through vandalised Wikipedia pages.
The error surfaced this week when users searching for Altman encountered a Google result that displayed an incorrect date of death. Similar inaccurate information was reportedly shown for Amodei, who leads Anthropic, the company behind the Claude family of artificial intelligence models.
Both executives are alive. The incorrect information was subsequently removed.
Google clarified that the error was not the result of a manual change made by the company. According to Google, its automated systems had surfaced information that appeared on Wikipedia after the online encyclopedia was vandalised.
The incident drew attention after screenshots of the inaccurate search results circulated across social media platforms, including Reddit and X. Users questioned how false information added to an external source could appear prominently within Google's search experience.
Google Search relies on automated systems to organise information collected from across the web. Some search features can surface factual information about people, organisations, places and other subjects without requiring users to visit the original webpage.
In this case, the underlying information had been manipulated at the source. Google's systems subsequently reflected the inaccurate data before it was corrected.
Wikipedia operates as a collaboratively edited online encyclopedia, allowing contributors to make changes to pages while maintaining systems for moderation, revision histories and reversing inaccurate edits. Its open editing model also means pages can occasionally become targets of vandalism before incorrect changes are identified and removed.
The episode is notable because Altman and Amodei are among the most prominent executives in the current artificial intelligence industry.
Altman leads OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, while Amodei co-founded Anthropic in 2021 after previously working at OpenAI. Anthropic develops Claude and competes with OpenAI, Google and other technology companies in the generative AI market.
The error also comes as Google increasingly incorporates artificial intelligence into the search experience. The company has expanded AI Overviews and other AI-powered features intended to synthesise information and provide answers directly within search results.
While the false death information was linked to manipulated source data rather than an AI-generated answer, the incident demonstrates how automated information systems can reproduce inaccuracies when their underlying sources contain false or compromised information.
For search platforms, such errors carry additional visibility because information can be presented prominently to users before they reach the original source.
Google has since corrected the inaccurate information. The incident puts renewed attention on how search engines verify rapidly changing biographical information and handle potentially unreliable source data as automated and AI-assisted features become a larger part of online information discovery.