Google falsely said Sam Altman was dead — and suggested vandalized public sources could be to blame

14 hours ago 7

Sam Altman is not dead, contrary to what a Google result earlier today may have told you.

Early Wednesday, users on X and Reddit pointed out that the Google search result for the OpenAI CEO's name said he had died that same day.

Google acknowledged the incorrect result several hours later.

"Thanks for flagging - this is no longer appearing, and was not a manual change by Google," Google said in a response on X. "When people vandalize public info sources, this can affect the information that appears in Search."

Google declined to comment when reached by Business Insider.

Some commenters blamed Wikipedia vandalism, which the site itself describes as "editing a page in an intentionally disruptive or malicious manner." Wikipedia, essentially the internet's free encyclopedia, relies on volunteers to edit and update its pages.

The revision history of the page for Sam Altman shows that editors were unusually active on Wednesday, with 22 updates listed that day alone. Prior to Wednesday, there had been a total of five updates to the page since the start of the month, each on a different day.

At 9:47 a.m. UTC, the page was updated to falsely say that Altman was assassinated and died on Wednesday. At 10:29 a.m., the page was corrected. The series of updates that followed included additional changes to the page, such as a reference to him being a "dropout," another claim that he died, and the alteration of his last name to "Gayman" instead of Altman. The latest update, as of publication time, appeared to correct all the changes.

In a statement to Business Insider, a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, said the public history for Altman's page showed the edits on Wednesday were made and "swiftly reverted in anywhere from 1 to 43 minutes."

"Volunteers have reverted the edits, issued vandalism warnings, and placed the page under Semi-protection, meaning that only users with accounts at least 4 days old and with at least 10 edits made can edit the page," the statement said. "Today's edits are a great example of how the volunteer Wikimedia model works in real time to ensure the quality of knowledge on Wikipedia."

The spokesperson also said that Wikipedia volunteers regularly monitor for problematic edits and that "most vandalism is addressed within ten minutes."

Google's knowledge panels, the information that appears at the top of some search results, draw on a variety of public sources.

"Wikipedia is a commonly-cited source, but it's not the only one," Google said in a post about the panels. "We draw from hundreds of sources from across the web, including licensing data that appears in knowledge panels for music, sports and TV."

Google also says it has a reporting system for users to flag incorrect information and that it will "manually remove policy-violating information that comes to our attention."

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

This story has been updated to include a comment from Wikipedia.

Kelsey is a senior reporter for Business Insider, where she covers business and tech news as well as stories about travel, luxury, and consulting.Her feature story "Disaster at 18,200 feet" received awards from the New York Press Club and the North American Travel Journalists Association, as well as honorable mention from the Society of American Travel Writers. It was also included on Longreads' and Pocket's best of 2022 lists. She has also received an American Journalism Online Award for her coverage on missing and murdered Indigenous people in Wyoming.She's appeared on CBS, NPR, NBC, and other outlets to discuss her work. She previously worked on the world news desk at the BBC in London and received a master's in journalism from Northwestern University.She can be reached by email at [email protected] or via the encrypted-messaging app Signal @kelseyv.21.Popular storiesDisaster on Denali: Inside a 1,000-foot fall on America's highest peakThrifting is more popular than ever. It's also never been worse.Rolex wouldn't service the vintage watch my mom inherited. Watchmakers say it happens all the time.A tiny, invasive bug and the climate crisis are changing how guitars are made, and shifting the course of music historyThe tourism free-for-all is overGovernment-run boarding schools were founded to 'civilize' Native Americans. Hundreds of dead children remain buried in the schoolyard graves.Meet the Texas minister who helps fly dozens of women to New Mexico every month to get abortionsPeople are flocking to Colorado for the great outdoors, but the air pollution is so bad, it's forcing many to stay insideInside Kabul: An aid worker reveals the devastating chaos that erupted during the US exit from Afghanistan