An awful prospect for Google searches.

[LAS14]

I heard on The Newshour tonight that Google is going to shift to AI driven search results. Instead of showing you a list of web sites that might have answers to your search, they will have AI sythesize the answers. I WILL IMMEDIATELY LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVE SEARCH ENGINES. I'm not sure I can articulate why this sounds so awful to me. Does it sound awful to you? Can you say why?

[RandySF]

1. Bing isn't half bad.

[LAS14]

2. Given the recent furor over AI on laptops from Microsoft....

... I imagine Bing is going to follow suit. Or even jump the gun.

[LeftInTX]

3. That happened in one my searches. They gave me a non AI option.

[RockRaven]

4. Google already ruined their search several years ago.

They shifted from prioritizing the best search results to prioritizing the most searches (because revenue must grow and grow) so they purposely enshittified their search to make people search multiple variations of terms to find what they're looking for.

Voila! More searches, which means more sponsored results shown, more revenue.

[ProfessorGAC]

5. I'm Already Seeing It

In at least 2, the AI basically regurgitated Wikipedia.
Scroll down half a page, click on Wiki and the answer is about the same.
Not verbatim, but pretty darned similar.
I use Google & DDG, and I only see it on Google.

[Wicked Blue]

6. I've used Duck Duck Go for years

I wouldn't use "googoo" if they paid me.

[choie]

7. Unfortunately

it already seems to be happening.

[Groundhawg]

8. Duck duck go is great

[LAS14]

10. Will change to DuckDuckGo immediately.

I'm lost in outdated info on the web for changing my default browser. Will have to get my daughter to do this when I see her next.

[usonian]

9. Discussed earlier, with a pointer to a longish article.

https://democraticunderground.com/100218963880
Google Is About to Change the Whole Internet -- Again

[Ms. Toad]

11. They've been doing that for at least a year, in a beta version.

I allowed it just to see what it would produce. I can't recall any time the AI search has gotten it right. (It's labeled, but the label is less obvious that I would like - and every once in a while I start to quote it and then realize it's AI so I'd better double check. In every instance I've checked it, it was wrong.)

I just skip the AI summary and go right to the regular search below it.

[justaprogressive]

12. Already deteriorating results

[dalton99a]

14. Sure enough

[Big Blue Marble]

15. Another vote for DuckDuck

I have used it for years. It is great while offering more privacy.

[dalton99a]

16. +1. Always Google through an anonymizing intermediary

[Uncle Joe]

17. It sounds a like a corporate filter to give them

a means of control over the peoples' deliberations as the one way mass communication technology of T.V. has faded to two way mass communication of the Internet.

That development spooks oligarchs and corporate supremacists that don't trust the 1st Amendment if actual speech can take precedence over monetary power.

The 1st Amendment has never been stronger and that scares the urine out of them.

Thanks for the thread LAS.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

18. It's already happening and it's terrible.

[Oopsie Daisy]

19. Way way back... when I had Windows 95, a search engine I used a lot was Alta Vista.

I think they went out of business.

[Jacson6]

20. Microsoft Bing & MS Web Browser already do this.

Next year your MS windows desktop/laptop computer will have AI automatically installed by Microsoft and it will keep tabs on you and take constant screen shots of your desktop to analyze what you are doing.

Privacy & Internet Security are a myth in the 21st Century.