Google’s AI may replace traditional websites and content creators leading to potential monopolization and diminishing user experience - Mrwhosetheboss

77 points

I’ve started getting those AI responses from Google now and I honestly skip right past them.

I fundamentally don’t trust the information so what’s the point of even reading it?

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48 points

Have you considered not using Google?

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20 points

Yes, but in my experience other search engines still give slightly worse results.

Kagi seemed good, but don’t wanna pay for it. Or at least not as much as they’re charging.

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14 points

Startpage gives you the same google results, minus the AI responses.

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7 points

I like Ecosia, but we can agree to disagree.

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2 points

I’ve been using Brave Search in the past few months and i can’t notice any difference in quality from Google in regular search.

The only difference I can’t notice is the quality in image searches.

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14 points

Most of this AI stuff is trash. I think Google AI has maybe once given me a useful answer. Amazon has this thing called Rufus that just slows down the process of searching customer reviews. Just like Google, it’s maybe once or twice given me useful information and none of it worth the wait that it takes for the search results to come up.

But we are pouring billions into it and increasing our data center power usage by 10x because It’s The Future …

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7 points

The problem is AI will always confidently give you an answer like its word is fact. Obviously since you’re the one searching, you’re most likely unable to verify its accuracy so it’s impossible to trust.

I dont mind AI being wrong when i can immediately tell when its wrong but in searches I’ll never trust it

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4 points

That’s a very good point. Things like chat GPT can accelerate the process of doing something that takes time but a human knows when it’s done correctly. But in anything where finding truth is the goal, it shouldn’t be trusted yet.

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1 point
Deleted by creator
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2 points

The AI responses are so incredibly bad.

I searched for a video game walkthrough that has a similar name to a movie, and it GAVE ME THE MOVIE PLOT.

What a shit show.

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69 points

Maybe because the person that ran yahoo search into the ground is now responsible for Google search.

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17 points

Yup that’s the definitive answer

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7 points
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So you posted a 17 minute video instead of a five-word sentence

Link an article next time please!

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3 points

The video is really interesting and more useful than that single sentence though.

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9 points

You found the marble in the oatmeal!!

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9 points

Do I get to drink from the firehose?

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6 points

We’re all drinking from the firehose right now

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9 points

Bingo. We have a winner

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36 points

Sometimes I forget that google is a searching engine, I’ve been using DDG for years now! :)

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17 points

The best thing about ddg is that I can click on any of the result links.

In google I have to skip like the first 3 rows because they are all tracking ads and my pihole blocks them 😁

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3 points

I can’t say I’m liking DDG. The first page gives me the same domain links. Like when I search for “eye washing gifs”, the first three links is the same website. Where I’d expect it to give me three separate websites (and combine searches).

It does that for a few searches.

But then again, I’m not even liking Google.

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1 point

have you tried searchpage or searxng? i think they use google (while searxng also use other search engines) beyond the scenes.

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2 points

I’ve been dogfooding Searxng for a week or so now and I’m sold on it over DDG and certainly over Google. Besides good results out of the box and being selfhosted so I have some search privacy (sorta), you can tune it to get better results for your particular situation.

Setup was a quick docker compose and env file, and then add it to FF with a rightclick on the URL bar to set it up in my search engines.

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1 point

DDG does have its issues like giving me random news articles from my area if it cant find anything relevant…

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3 points

Is Bing really that much better, though?

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1 point

You can use a bang, !g , to get google results on ddg

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4 points

That’s just Google with extra steps

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1 point

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve gotten fed up with trying to work with Google now. I’ve given up

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35 points
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Because - and this is a real thing, despite how baffling and utterly, obviously insane it is - the guy who now heads the Google search team is the very same guy who drove Yahoo search into the ground.

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7 points
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This is insane. Idk what google is thinking.

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10 points

Google: “Well surely, he couldn’t tank TWO massive social media engines in one lifetime!”

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8 points

Granted I’m jaded as fuck from only a decade and a half as a software engineer, but from where I’m standing, it’s pretty much all just c-suite circlejerking. Competent, incisive, effective, and ethical c-suite leadership that doesn’t focus primarily on finance matters is vanishingly rare these days.

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5 points

I’m also a software engineer, but much earlier in my career and mostly having worked at small startups. But I hope some of the tech giants fall and make way for smaller players and innovation. But maybe that’s too optimistic.

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26 points

I just received a Kagi invite from a friend.

It’s absolutely great

Let’s hope they don’t look too closely at how family plans are shared for now.
10€ + taxes a month is just too steep for me

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7 points

That’s the one thing keeping me from joining the Kagi train

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10 points

As an alternative, you could try self-hosting searxng if you’re that way inclined.

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