Creepy. Google’s search engine is insisting that a made-up horror creature known as “Ed’s Head” from the fictional universe SCP Foundation is real. The ambulatory human head acts like a crab and “scuttles across the seafloor,” using brain matter that extrudes from the back of its head, according to a Google search that takes readers who look up “SCP Foundation” to seemingly authoritative descriptions with a totally straight internet face. The creepazoid Ed’s Head is linked to a deceased nobody named Edward Belltram, according to DNA and dental records, notes information revealed in a Google search. Obviously, the information isn’t real, but Google never makes that clear, nor does it label it as fictional. The creature’s description bears a striking resemblance to one of the monsters from John Carpenter’s groundbreaking 1982 horror movie The Thing (pictured), but Google’s presentation of it is a valuable warning about how AI and search engines can be tricked into treating entirely fictional information as absolutely true. According to SCP lore, which anyone can find in a Google search, the SCP Foundation is a non-governmental organization that collects and contains supernatural discoveries cataloged in (fake) records, studies, and research documents.
