Google denies Sonic tribute riddled with errors was made by AI

Google recently paid tribute to Sonic the Hedgehog on X, only to apologize for making bizarre errors, which they claimed were not due to AI.

The official Google Play X account took it upon itself to create an impromptu Sonic The Hedgehog appreciation thread. Their aim was apparently to show Sonic as “he gets older and older,” which is logical given there are quite a few Sonic games on its Play Store.

However, the thread, which sporadically covers the blue creature’s evolution from 1991 to 2022, sparked a wave of corrections as it cited incorrect years and strange inaccuracies. While the original post has since been deleted, there are still users commenting on the wild posts.

Google’s world-changing AI cannot make a coherent Sonic the Hedgehog thread pic.twitter.com/1rkwLjGltt

— Paul Tassi (@PaulTassi) April 28, 2024

In one instance, a picture of Sonic from 2014 was mistakenly labeled as being from 1993, and the caption alongside it made no sense. Consequently, the thread is now filled with community comments criticizing the social media account for its numerous factual errors.

“2018 Sonic,” stated Google, “weirdly looked like 90’s Sonic.” The image was actually a screenshot from the original 1991 game. When posting an image from the Sonic movie, Google claimed that it came from the 2020 film. However, eagle-eyed viewers noticed that the frame came from the second Sonic the Hedgehog film which came out on 2022.

every single post in this thread has a community note