Don’t Trust Google’s ‘AI Overview’

18 October 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

Often, its results are false.

An example is that I Googled

“Rick Berman” Forbes

and atop the listed findings was:

AI Overview

The query ‘rick berman’ forbes can refer to two different individuals: either the Star Trek producer Rick Berman, who was a subject in a 2013 Forbes article about the Center for Consumer Freedom, or Richard Berman, a federal judge who made a ruling regarding the Jeffrey Epstein case, which was reported by Forbes in August 2025. Both are mentioned in articles published on Forbes and related publications, but they are distinct individuals with different public roles.

That phrase “2013 Forbes article” wasn’t actually referring to an article about Rick Berman but it was instead referring to an article by Rick Berman. And that Rick Berman wasn’t any “Star Trek producer” but was instead yet a third “Rick Berman”, who specializes in collecting millions of dollars from large corporations that produce dangerous products and/or cheat their workers, and that allow unlimited victimization of animals, and he especially demonizes suppporters of animal-rights, which corporate money then secretly funds his propaganda campaigns against their victims, and it also funds his lobbying organizations against governmental regulations that would hold those corporations liable, and that would not provide any protection or corporate compensation to their victims. He despises the poor, and is a professional gun-for-hire to maximize the percentage of America’s wealth that goes to billionaires and that minimizes the Government’s services to the public. Perhaps for this reason, Google’s AI hides his very existence (he wasn’t among the two that Google’s AI said were the options), and misrepresents things in order to keep the public ignorant in the ways that the billionaires (not only Republican ones but also Democratic ones) would want them to be and remain ignorant. So, this “Rick Berman” is extremely partisan against even billionaires who are Democrats, but his operations benefit actually ALL billionaires, against the public — and especially against animals. And he is hidden by Google, which was created by the CIA.

Since this Rick Berman represents Republican billionaires, he is exposed by the ‘charities’ of Democratic billionaires, and he responds to that by exposing their organizations. For example, his ActivistCash dot com produced an article about the Democratic Party megabillionaire donor George Soros’s organization “Democracy Alliance” and lists what he alleges to be its “Organizations” and “Foundations” and “Celebrities” and “Key Players,” all of which he calls “the left” but which is actually just the Democratic Party (which is serving its billionaires). However, there is no way of knowing whom the donors to the Democracy Alliance are, because it’s organized as a 501(c)(4), “Dark Money” PAC, which keeps its donors secret. It is itself “a project of the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit funding and fiscal sponsorship provider.” It’s clear that the Democracy Alliance and the Democracy Action Fund work together, though both are secret. And they both work with Hansjoerg Wyss, the Swiss billionaire. The fact that a billionaire who isn’t even a U.S. citizen is allowed to — through his enormous wealth — purchase (by his secret political-propaganda campaigns) the votes of perhaps millions of liberal fools in America to vote against the other Party (which is just as corrupt and corrupted as the Party that the billionaire is secretly funding) displays what a mockery it is to use the term “democracy” to refer to America. It mocks the very term “democracy.”

This is not the way that a democracy is ruled; it is the way that an aristocracy is ruled — an aristocracy of wealth, which represents only the wealthy — not a democracy, which represents the public.

The U.S. Government and its advocates lie to call this a “democracy.”

On October 18th I headlined “Only Billionaires Determine Who Can Win National Government Offices in the U.S.” and then when I did a Google search for that headline, what came at the top of the list of finds was:

AI Overview

The claim that “only billionaires determine who can win national government offices in the U.S.” is an oversimplification. While billionaires have an enormous and disproportionate influence on U.S. elections, a complex array of factors—including campaign spending from many sources, voter preferences, and the characteristics of the candidates themselves—determine electoral outcomes.

The outsized influence of billionaires

• Massive donations: Supreme Court decisions, most notably Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), have allowed for unlimited spending by outside groups known as Super PACs. This has enabled billionaires to spend massive, sometimes anonymous, amounts of money on campaigns. In the 2024 election, 100 billionaire families reportedly donated $2.6 billion, representing a significant portion of all campaign spending.

• Political access and influence: Billionaire donors can gain significant access and influence with politicians through their donations, which may lead to policies that favor their interests. This was notably highlighted in 2024, with reports detailing a “swapping of campaign contributions for political power” and billionaires being appointed to key government positions.

• Funding disparity: The massive concentration of political spending among a small number of ultra-wealthy families creates a significant disparity in the political process, allowing them to shape the environment in which elections are contested.

Other factors in U.S. elections

Despite the impact of big-money donors, other factors prove that billionaire funding is not the sole determinant of electoral success:

• Candidate quality and messaging: Campaign spending can influence election outcomes, but it does not guarantee victory. The candidates’ own message and appeal to the public remain a vital factor in securing an electoral win.

• Incumbency: For congressional races, the effect of campaign spending can vary. For instance, increased spending by a challenger has a greater effect on their winning probability than similar spending by an incumbent, which shows diminishing returns.

• Diverse funding sources: Campaign financing comes from many sources beyond billionaires. These include small and large individual donors, political action committees (PACs) representing various interests, and political parties themselves. In fact, in the 2024 election, most funding came from PACs.

• Public perception: The influence of big money has led to significant public distrust in the government. A 2023 Pew poll found that 85% of Americans agreed that the high cost of running a campaign makes it harder for “good people” to run for office.

• Limits on direct contributions: While Super PACs can accept unlimited funds, there are still limits on direct contributions to candidates and political parties. However, billionaires often use Super PACs and other channels to maximize their political spending.

Potential reforms to campaign finance

The issue of money in politics has led to calls for reform. Some proposed solutions include:

• Small-donor public financing: Programs like Seattle’s Democracy Voucher program match small donations with public funds to amplify the voices of average citizens.

• Anonymous donation systems: The “Voting with Dollars” plan, proposed by Yale Law professors, would use publicly funded vouchers for voters and require all other private donations to be made anonymously through the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

• Overturning court rulings: Some advocates propose a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and affirm the authority of Congress to regulate campaign finance.

I repeated the Google search and this time the following was at the top of it:

AI Overview

It is false that only billionaires can win national government offices in the U.S., but money’s significant influence in the U.S. election system gives wealthy donors disproportionate power. Political analysts and watchdog groups argue that the current campaign finance system, heavily impacted by Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United, amplifies the voices of the super-rich while diminishing the power of average citizens.

Why the premise is not entirely accurate

• Non-billionaires in office: Many politicians who hold federal office are not billionaires and did not start out wealthy. They rely on various sources of funding to support their campaigns. …

Google’s AI isn’t programmed to find the relevant data to answer a given question but to generate CIA-acceptable propaganda, and so it did. However, the relevant data were linked-to in my article’s conclusion that

The scientific studies all prove that anyone who isn’t at least a billionaire has no effect upon and is not represented by any of the elected national-Government officials in the United States; ONLY billionaires determine whom will have any real chance to become elected into public office at that level, the national Government, because on all of the most important U.S.-Government policy-issues, either Party represents only one of the two groups of billionaires, not the public. It’s always just a battle between the billionaires.

Google’s AI wasn’t searching to find those scientific studies, nor any other scientific studies, but only to continue fooling the American public, to think that America is a democracy instead of an aristocracy (or “oligarchy,” or “kleptocracy,” or whatever other term one uses to refer to a dictatorship by and for the super-rich).

On 2 March 2025 an 85-minute documentary was posted to youtube, “The American Oligarchy: How corrupt are US politics? | ENDEVR Documentary”, and all it did was show that the problem exists, nothing to solve it. That’s the standard way for people who proclaim to dislike America’s corruptness to write and talk about it, but when I posted on 7 Auguat 2025 an article, on four news-sites, “How Americans Can Replace Our Existing Dictatorship, by a Democracy”, it got no response, apparently no one is really interested in solving the problem, only in complaining about it.

That documentary, however, which complained about the problem, got lots of viewer-comments. Here is one that I find poignant:

@mosaic.owl.studios

Hello from the US. I hate it here. I didn’t vote for this. I’ve always believed that Citizens United was an absolutely horrible decision. Our elections are bought and paid for, and our middle class and working class repeatedly pay the price for it. However, many in the middle and working classes are fooled by political propaganda that influences them to vote against their own interests. I hate it here. But, I can’t really leave. Many of us are trapped here by poverty. It takes money to leave. Money that I don’t have.

ADD: Since so many people keep making assumptions (shame on you)...

1. I have a job, and I never said I didn’t. Don’t assume things.

2. I don’t have zero money, I just don’t have enough to relocate. Don’t assume things.

3. When I say I’m trapped here by poverty, I’m talking about medical debt. Don’t assume things.

There are some horribly hateful people in these comments. People who can’t even hear the slightest criticism of the US without going into fits of rage and then hate-commenting. GROW UP. And stop assuming things. You sound like fools.

It’s not only the billionaires that are the problem here, but the myth-believing public, who simply refuse to get off of their treasured myths. The billionaires won’t solve this problem — they benefit enormously from it — but only the public can, and they don’t really WANT to. Of course, Google’s AI serves, actually, the people who benefit from the problem, not the people who suffer it. Apparently, the public care enough about the problem to complain about it, but not enough to do ANYTHING to SOLVE it. The billionaires really have no resistance at all. Lots of people demonstrate against the problem, but that can’t do anything to FIX it. The stupidity of the mass is mind-boggling.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.