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Google is replacing search results with only the AI (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 2 days ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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replace the Web with slop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aji8lhaV3XM&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260520-google-replacing-search-results-with-only-the-ai - podcast

time: 9 min 04 sec

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[–] RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Google thinks there’s more money in feeding you slop forever. With ads. And a subscription.

I don't think that's the long term goal. First, they slowly phase out the actual information sources, by making it so you aren't linked to other websites. Now you've got a dependent group who rely in AI as a source of truth, and now they can modify "the truth" whenever you want because it's the only source left. They could re-write human history and only people with books would know the difference.

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 11 points 1 day ago

Now you’ve got a dependent group who rely in AI as a source of truth, and now they can modify “the truth” whenever you want because it’s the only source left.

Well, besides using that for political reasons, they can also use that for massive profits.

Better make sure your carpet cleaning business is paying Google for """advertising""" (no matter how much it costs), or Google's AI will just forget to mention your business when local customers search online for carpet cleaners. Or you want to shop online for a new phone? Now Google's AI will only feed you positive reviews of Google phone products, along with occasional horror stories about other products. Want to download and run Firefox? Google's AI will straight-up gaslight you into thinking that all non-Chrome browsers are extinct.

[–] Jiral@lemmy.org 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Thing is, there are other search engines and some of them have growing and improving own search indexes. They might be worse than Google today but if Google goes totally bonkers, they will be a viable alternative. So people will have at least options. Some of those alternatives are also having a "kill switch for all AI". Granted with search results it is hard to remove all the slop but there are mechanisms to weed them out and on top of that easy report functions against it.