Rod HiltonAug 15, 2023

Right now if you search for "country in Africa that starts with the letter K":

- DuckDuckGo will link to an alphabetical list of countries in Africa which includes Kenya.

- Google, as the first hit, links to a ChatGPT transcript where it claims that there are none, and summarizes to say the same.

This is because ChatGPT at some point ingested this popular joke:

"There are no countries in Africa that start with K."
"What about Kenya?"
"Kenya suck deez nuts?"

Google Search is over.

Show threadCaryJMAug 15, 2023
@rodhilton Not that this contradicts the main point (that Google Search is over, which I agree with) but this same query in Google for me provides the correct result. Incredibly low bar but it does come back correct.
Show threadRod HiltonAug 15, 2023
@Caryjm the fact that Google was doing this went viral on a lot of socials and I believe there was a frontpage HN post about it as well, so Google has patched the query to fix this. It's working for me now as well.
Show threadCaryJM
@rodhilton that was what I was assuming as well - so egregious and with enough visibility that a manual fix was required. 100% agree with your thesis - if you’re looking for a fact which is known, Google no longer useful as a way to get it
Aug 15, 2023 at 6:04pmIvory for iOS
Show threadkaupAug 15, 2023
@Caryjm @rodhilton I just did it, and exactly wrong. Not patched.
Show threadskelricAug 15, 2023
@Caryjm @rodhilton
Looks like AI was the weak link in the chain.