What The Flock? Google AI Hallucinates Gold Hiding In License Plate Cameras

by Aaron Leong — Friday, August 07, 2026, 11:11 AM EDT

Google’s AI-powered search hit a snag when users asking about Flock Safety license plate cameras were told the devices were literal gold mines stuffed with precious metals—information that was not based on facts, but fake data from viral internet memes.

google search1 — *Google AI Overview result about Flock cameras - Image: Futurism*

When asked "how much gold does a Flock camera have," Google’s AI claimed that a single Flock camera contained up to five grams of gold (that's $650 in the pocket right there) plus anywhere between two to 23 pounds of copper. Considering the camera itself weighs only three pounds, the latter number is already is dubious. In reality, while circuit boards do contain trace amounts of metal, extracting scrap from one would net closer to a few cents than a payday...and lots of legal trouble.

The origin of this bogus info comes from a running joke across privacy-conscious corners of the web. Flock Safety’s automated license plate cameras, which use machine learning to capture vehicle movement and feed police databases, have long drawn scrutiny and pushback from civil liberties advocates. As a tongue-in-cheek form of protest, online creators began circulating memes framing the cameras as high-tech piñatas packed with valuable metal, encouraging people to slice them down for scrap.

Instead of recognizing the satire, Google’s AI scraped the claims and presented them with unflinching authority. However, tracing the search sources revealed it was drawing from a sketchy, anonymous Substack post claiming a scrap value of "$150 to $500" and an AI-generated Instagram post from a weed-growing account.

Moreover, this isn't the first time Google's AI Overviews have mistaken satire for reality. The feature previously advised users to spread non-toxic glue on pizza to keep cheese from sliding off after taking an old Reddit joke literally.

flock camera1 — *Flock license plate reader - Image: Flock*

In response to the Flock result, Google has since quietly updated its search models. If you try the same query now, the result gives a prompt rebuttal, explicitly noting that claims of cameras holding pounds of copper are completely false and that the rumors originated from internet memes and AI hallucinations. Amusingly, checking the sources for the updated result cites to all the press reporting on the AI’s initial blunder.

So herein lies a persistent flaw with LLMs: they are still prone to echoing whatever text they find without evaluating context, physics, or credibility. Moving forward, how AI operators filter jokes and memes from reality within the realm mainstream search infrastructure remains to be seen.