Clearly, online search isn’t bad enough yet, so Google is intensifying its efforts to continue speedrunning the downfall of Google Search. They’ve announced they’re going to show even more “AI”-generated answers in Search results, to more people.
Today, we’re sharing that we’ve launched Gemini 2.0 for AI Overviews in the U.S. to help with harder questions, starting with coding, advanced math and multimodal queries, with more on the way. With Gemini 2.0’s advanced capabilities, we provide faster and higher quality responses and show AI Overviews more often for these types of queries.
Plus, we’re rolling out to more people: teens can now use AI Overviews, and you’ll no longer need to sign in to get access.
↫ Robby Stein
On top of this, Google is also testing a new search mode where “AI” takes over the entire search experience. Instead of seeing the usual list of links, the entire page of “results” will be generated by “AI”. This feature, called “AI Mode” is opt-in for now. You can opt-in in Labs, but you do need to be a paying Google One AI Premium subscriber. I guess it’s only a matter of time before this “AI Mode” will be the default on Google Search, because it allows Google to keep its users on Google.com, and this makes it easier to show them ads and block out competitors.
We all know where this is going.
But, I hear you say, I use DuckDuckGo! I don’t have to deal with any of this! Well, I’ve got some bad news for you, because DuckDuckGo, too, is greatly expanding its use of “AI” in search. DDG will provide free, anonymous access to various “AI” chatbots, deliver more “AI”-generated search results based on more sources (but still English-only), and more – all without needing to have an account. A few of these features were already available in beta, and are now becoming generally available.
Props to DuckDuckGo for providing a ton of options to turn all of this stuff off, though. They give users quite a bit of control over how often these “AI”-generated search results appear, and you can even turn them off completely. All the “AI” chatbot stuff is delegated to a separate website, and any link to it from the normal search results can be disabled, too. It’s entirely possible to have DuckDuckGo just show a list of regular search results, exactly as it should be.
Let’s hope DDG can keep these values going, because if they, too, start pushing this “AI” nonsense without options to turn it off, I honestly have no idea where else to go.
startpage, qwant?
Hot tip. The AI search has all the guardrails in place, so if you want “traditional” Google results do the same search but with a swear word, and it’ll disable all the AI
“what is Linux” – AI search
“what is f******* Linux” – no AI
AI has been trained on Richard Stallman: “I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.”
But, do you hear me saying, “I use SearxNG! I don’t have to deal with any of this!”
Because I use SearxNG. And I don’t have to deal with any of this.
It is enshitification on steroids – yet, unintentional enshitification. It feels like these AI bros don’t really understand exactly how awful these “summaries” really are. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with people about topics where they read a summary of a book or article, and therefor, completely missed ALL the vital details in the source material. It’s impossible to talk to a human being who only understands a bit of source material as filtered through “AI” – and they are completely ignorant of it.
They consume twice as much material, and understand 1/8 as much. Worse – these machines track what they’ve already told you in their context windows, just to make sure the next generated bit of slop sounds consistent, and to keep it confirming all those biases.
I’ve been saying this for a while – AI represents the end of the internet, and the end of the information age. We are now entering a new age of willful ignorance.
CaptainN-,
I actually don’t like like AI search results either and I can see why you’d criticize the sheer laziness, but at the same time this idea isn’t new. “Cliff notes” have been around since the 90s. AI summaries are a modern equivalent. It doesn’t surprise me at that people who given the opportunity to take shortcuts will do so. It’s human nature.
There’s probably enough of a market for no-AI variants for people (including me) who don’t want AI on search results. However overall many people and especially new generations are much more likely to embrace new AI without hesitation. I think that the normalization of AI tools and technology will continue despite the those who don’t want it. By the way I’m just a messenger, don’t crucify me personally if you don’t like this future, haha.
It’s quite concerning to see both Google and DuckDuckGo expanding their use of AI in search results. While advancements in AI can enhance user experience, the shift towards AI-generated content risks diluting the quality and reliability of search results. Google’s push for “AI Mode” and more AI Overviews feels like a move to keep users on their platform at the cost of traditional search functionality.
Red Light Green Light https://www.osnews.com/story/133872/microsoft-will-allow-users-to-install-windows-11-on-anything-but-you-wont-get-updates/