Google’s search results briefly listed Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, as deceased on Wednesday, but the company confirmed the error was not caused by its own systems.
The false claim appeared in Google’s search results early Wednesday, prompting users on X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit to flag the discrepancy. Google responded hours later, stating the incorrect information was no longer visible and was not the result of a manual update by the company.
Wikipedia edits linked to false claim
The erroneous information appeared to stem from vandalism on Altman’s Wikipedia page, which was edited multiple times on Wednesday. According to the page’s revision history, an edit at 9:47 a.m. UTC falsely stated that Altman had been assassinated and died that day. The claim was corrected by 10:29 a.m. UTC, but additional disruptive edits followed, including altering Altman’s last name to “Gayman” and calling him a “dropout.”
Prior to Wednesday, the page had seen only five updates since the start of the month, with each edit occurring on separate days. In contrast, 22 updates were recorded on Wednesday alone, reflecting an unusual spike in activity.
Google’s response
A Google spokesperson clarified via X that the error was not introduced manually by the company. The statement read: “Thanks for flagging — this is no longer appearing, and was not a manual change by Google. When people vandalize public info sources, this can affect the information that appears in Search.”
Google’s search results, including knowledge panels, aggregate data from hundreds of public sources, not solely Wikipedia. The company did not specify which sources contributed to the incorrect result.
Wikipedia’s role
Wikipedia describes vandalism as “editing a page in an intentionally disruptive or malicious manner.” The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, did not respond to requests for comment. The foundation has previously noted that while vandalism is rare, it can temporarily affect the accuracy of information on the platform.
The incident highlights the vulnerability of crowd-sourced platforms to malicious edits and the potential for such changes to propagate through search engines that rely on these sources.