Jesus Christ gaffe highlights featured snippets problems

Dean Mouhtaropoulos | Getty Images

A general view of Christ the Redeemer, a statue of Jesus Christ, through the dark clouds during the Netherlands training session at the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil held at the Estadio Jose Bastos Padilha Gavea on June 19, 2014 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

A recent Google Home blunder highlights one of the search giant’s next big challenges with its smart speaker device.

Anger broke out on social media Thursday afternoon when people started creating videos that showed that Google’s smart speaker, Home, couldn’t answer the question “Who is Jesus?” but could provide responses for Buddha, Muhammad, and Satan.

People hypothesized that it was “political correctness” or a lack of respect that kept the device from talking about Jesus or God.

Then Google issued a statement on Friday explaining the problem and barring Home from answering questions about other religious figures, too.

Home pulls some of its answers directly from the web and certain topics (like religion) “can be more vulnerable to vandalism and spam,” the company explained via tweet.

Tweet

(If you ask Home who Jesus Christ or Satan is now, it will respond, “Religion can be complicated and I’m still learning.”)

What’s going on here? The problem lies with Google’s so-called “featured snippets.” Whether or not you have a smart speaker, you’ve likely seen this product in action: Ask a question and Google will serve up a box at the top of search highlighting what its algorithms have determined to be the best answer.