Kassandra đȘ
April Kingkudos to google for offering a free option to keep AI out of search results
Luis Villa@april no, no, it'll keep *their* AI out of search results, not everyone else's. Which might be the worst of all worlds.
Austin Philp@luis_in_brief @april Yeah I feel like using LLM to aggregate search results is actually one of the few GOOD uses of modern LLM's (as long as you're not using it for anything critical like health advice)
This just leaves you with the bad uses of LLM, like news sites replacing actual journalists with chatGPT
FoolishOwl@austinphilp @luis_in_brief @april The summaries are a problem as well, even if accurate; it's still parasitic, and killing its hosts. I saw this pointed out today:
Google Is Killing Retro Dodo & Other Independent Sites
It honestly breaks my heart to write this article, but I want to be as transparent as possible with our readers because you are the ones that have quite literally kept our lights on over the past five years, and you deserve to know the truth about whatâs happening behind the scenes, so here it [âŠ]
@foolishowl @luis_in_brief @april Very fair point - though I'd argue this is just a continuation of an existing problem
Google already provided summaries for search results before LLMs that reduced click-throughs, and many top results these days are basically just copy-pastes of the actual source (sometimes without even a link to the original
corhen@foolishowl @austinphilp @luis_in_brief @april
Hadn't heard of RetroDodo, seems like a great site.
Google really has done incredible damage to its own main business, and it shows why FOSS, RSS, and the fediverse is only going to become more important.
@corhen @foolishowl @luis_in_brief @april "Google really has done incredible damage to its own main business"
Well, this is the crux of the issue in a nutshell - they've done incredible damage to their core product, but because of the effective monopoly they've built for themselves, their actual business has never been better (they saw a 40% bump in profits last quarter).
And ultimately the way corporate America works, that's literally the only thing that matters to them
Yayroos@april @luis_in_brief that's still one less AI to contend with. Suits me.
coolbean (account has been reverted to before we moved back to this instance)@april google starting to look a lot more appealing all of a sudden
@april they doesn't said the purpose of their AI, maybe it will filter out AI build content to improve result quality
evets@april snapchat tried to get people to pay for an AI bot, no one did, so they switched it around and made you pay to be able to turn it off.
falktx@april can we get a link to the article instead of a picture of it please?
@falktx itâs right at the top of ars: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/04/google-might-make-users-pay-for-ai-features-in-search-results/
aldonogueira 
Ralph058 (S/he/it) AF4EZ@april I was thinking the same thing and I'm supportive of AI in a lot of cases.
The only thing I've found their AI useful for is single click results that is _usually_ right. I've seen errors in it, even then.
But if I want to know the answer to some inane question, it is easier. Is it worth paying for? Not only no, but hell no. It just isn't that good.
The only thing I've found their AI useful for is single click results that is _usually_ right. I've seen errors in it, even then.
But if I want to know the answer to some inane question, it is easier. Is it worth paying for? Not only no, but hell no. It just isn't that good.
draxil@april sadly not what this is, you get their free ai for free :(
Robert F.P. Ludwick@april This is peak capitalism. Train AI on publicly available data, then charge people to use the AI. Free ingress, paid egress!
Ministerofimpediments@april YeahâŠall that likely means is people who donât pay get the sub-subpar experience and a more overt shoveling of their data into the nearest âAIâ hopper. Because the not so secret dream is not to have the users be the productâŠbut to also have them pay for the privilege of being the product. Like prison labor without the room and boardâŠ
@april
Sssshhhhh...
;)
Scott Knowles@april Both DuckDuckGo and Google search engines are crap anyway, I can't see paying either for worse service. I'm trying Arc, which is returning better results, but it doesn't have some basic options yet, like clear cache. Too bad search engine became ad revenue generators than useful.
William Bell@april Love it! Well said!
@april this would make it slightly more useable. Although not enough for me to use google again.
Zeh Fernando@april exactly my thoughts when I saw the news
Felix đ@april This is hilarious! Google will make you pay extra for reading the plagiarism machine's output
Yza@april I assume this is because LLMs are actually very expensive to run and opperate at a loss. they've been free/cheap for a while in hopes of selling people on the technology and getting people to train their LLMs for them. I wonder if this is a subtle admission that this AI shit is unsustainable
the thing about LLMs is that most people don't want to deal with the consequences of them. They had to be forced on people
but you can't do that and demand payment to use them
Enara 
â@april finally something Google does that I can get behind of! đđ€Ł