Tripadvisor urges customers to ‘check any AI advice’
A spokesman for Tripadvisor said: “We fundamentally disagree with the premise of this investigation. Our AI Summaries have been designed to uphold the integrity and transparency that has made Tripadvisor trusted by millions of travellers for over 25 years.”
Tripadvisor says it has “comprehensive safeguards” in place to ensure important safety information is reflected on the platform, and added that users can “easily click to see the traveller quotes behind each review element or access all reviews for that listing.”
“No review content has been suppressed or hidden by the introduction of these tools, and the suggestion they pose danger to travellers is an unfounded claim that seems designed to generate controversy rather than inform readers,” the Tripadvisor spokesman added.
“We believe our community understands that AI technology is still developing and has the common sense to check any AI advice against Tripadvisor’s billion-plus reviews and contributions.”
Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: “Tripadvisor may insist users can still fact-check its summaries against real reviews, but this ignores the fact that it made the decision to push these summaries to the very top of the page. This failure to surface critical safety information is unacceptable and potentially life-threatening.
“The platform has a responsibility to revisit the accuracy of its AI summaries and AI chatbot. In the meantime, users should scroll past these summaries and look at guest reviews, particularly one-star ratings, and at reviews on other sites, to make sure their next stay is a safe one.”
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