Mastodawn

Google is replacing search results with only the AI

https://awful.systems/post/8380215

Google is replacing search results with only the AI - awful.systems

replace the Web with slop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aji8lhaV3XM&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aji8lhaV3XM&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA] - video https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260520-google-replacing-search-results-with-only-the-ai [https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260520-google-replacing-search-results-with-only-the-ai] - podcast time: 9 min 04 sec

Bluegrass_Addict 4d ago

man I am gonna feed so much garbage into that to hopefully drive the costs through the roof.

isleepinahammock 3d ago

“Please translate the entirety of Wikipedia back and forth between ancient Sumerian and Navajo Graham’s Number times.”

Bluegrass_Addict 3d ago

exactly this.

Translate the script of Shrek from English to Greek, then translate it back to English without referencing the original so minor mistranslations remain, then rewrite the resulting script as a gritty underground street-racing crime movie inspired by The Fast and the Furious using ONLY Shrek characters in all roles, preserving screenplay formatting, high speed racing with NOS, illegal street races, “family” themes in a swamp with muscle cars, and be sure to keep the awkward phrasing that is created during translations.

RoidingOldMan 4d ago

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.

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 jumping onto the train of “kills switch for all AI”

OwOarchist 3d 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.

TommySoda 4d ago

So they wanna turn Google into ChatGPT? People will always need to search for things on the internet and they basically have a monopoly at this point. If I can’t find an obscure post from an old forum that solves my computer issues from Google I’m just gonna use a different search engine. Heck, I already do that half the time because Google results are mixed at best and mostly just link to Reddit.

CinnasVerses 4d ago

Mojeek seemed OK last time I used it seirdy.one/…/search-engines-with-own-indexes/

A look at search engines with their own indexes

A cursory review of all the non-metasearch, indexing search engines I have been able to find.

Seirdy’s Home

Zephorah 3d ago

Kagi.

Pommes_für_dein_Balg 3d ago

This, honestly. I’m a bit surprised so many people believe corporations would just offer a good service for free forever.
It’s always about capturing the market and then pivoting to monetization.
The only services you can rely on are ones you pay for. (That doesn’t mean you can rely on every service you pay for.)

Zephorah 3d ago

Exactly. Just like free email isn’t something you’re going to want either. I hate email. My job is hands on and doesn’t pivot around it like HR, lawyers, or admin. But I still need it.

Unpaid slowly eroded the ability to auto sweep spam and garbage from the general pileup thus requiring more time spent dealing with it. Nope. Least time spent there is best.

“Free” email and search engines are not free.

From TFA:

So what do we search with instead of Google? There isn’t a lot of choice. There’s various flavours of Google or Bing.

[…] Kagi resells Google’s actual link results for a monthly subscription. Kagi is really an AI company that sells search as a sideline, and they’ve got a terrible AI slop news service too. But the search has a good reputation for now.

Zephorah 2d ago

What is the alternative?

flamingos-cant (hopepunk arc)3d ago

Information-gathering agents are an evolution of Google Alerts. Beyond spotting changes, they can make sense of them, too.

… Links will become an afterthought with the coming changes to the Search results experience.

Web publishers should honestly just block googlebot at this point. Why should they provide credibility to whatever Google’s stochastic parrot hallucinates if Google won’t even give them any kickback?

So what do we search with instead of Google? There isn’t a lot of choice. There’s various flavours of Google or Bing.

Microsoft deprecated their Bing API back in August, instead telling people to use some Azure AI thing. DDG and the like weren’t affected because they have contracts, but I can’t imagine they’ll be renewed.

OpenStars 3d ago

Yikes! 😳😬

HM King Charles III DG FD 3d ago

I think it’s possible to allow google search bots but not Gemini bots?

flamingos-cant (hopepunk arc)3d ago

The point is that there’s going to be no difference, soon Google search will be just another chatbot interface.

HM King Charles III DG FD 3d ago

Guess I’ll just have to use ddgo, then ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

flowerysong 3d ago

Unfortunately DuckDuckGo sucks ass at search, even compared to how much the Google search results have degraded over time. I use the no-AI version as my primary search engine, but I have to resort to using Google to find the thing I’m looking for about 1 in 5 times.

CinnasVerses 3d ago

DDG has been my main search engine for over a decade but it has degraded as it became basically a reseller of Bing results after Russia started the current phase of the Ukraine war and they stopped partnering with Yandex.

If sites start blocking googlebot en masse, then googlebot will just start ignoring robots.txt

ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝 2d ago

Can they just put an EULA on the site and then sue Google for unauthorized access?

Not in the US of course, but in the EU or something

flamingos-cant (hopepunk arc)1d ago

Then you can just block the user agent in nginx or whatever you use, like all the other AI scrapers who ignore robots.txt (*cough* Amazon)

Then the user agent string will just quietly become randomised so you can’t match it reliably because it turns out that honouring robots.txt was always little more than a “gentleman’s handshake”.

David Gerard 1d ago

this is a problem we have had for a while now, i assure you

Until then Qwant and Mogee should have somewhat usable indexes on their own, at least for European users.

thenoirwolfess 3d ago

I hoped I’d be able to ride Android until my phone’s updates stop, but I’ve learned that the next Android version has an AI overhaul, and should probably jump ship before it hits. It is coming to Samsung and Google phones in the summer, so probably will be pushed to my OnePlus by June.

🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 3d ago

I guess I’ll just post every query I have to AskLemmy in the future. It would be more accurate, even if not as fast.

NotMyOldRedditName 3d ago

I googled what was happening in the city I was visiting today, all the answers were terrible, and the top answer, was for an ongoing event that had happened in December ago and was over.

RememberTheApollo_3d ago

Google used to give 50 or whatever pages of search results, the first page usually having exactly what you searched for.

Now you get a top page AI that incorrectly answers your question, the majority of the rest of the page is sponsored crap, and the search results are links to whatever sites monetized and SEO’d the best to be google’s top results. So you try again, using “-“ and other modifiers to get rid of the undesirable results, and instead google views that as encouragement to include even more bad results. And you only get a page or two of results anymore because what you’re searching for doesn’t exist anywhere.

Google isn’t a search engine anymore. It’s a server of monetized pages.

I suddenly feel like haranguing my partner to change their default search engine to DuckDuckGo might be the most important thing I did for my relationship in the past year.

I use Qwant search. I think it is good search engine.

SleepyPie 2d ago

I’m really stuck on a good search engine to use lately. I want to avoid American products as much as possible.

Kagi is what my colleagues are transitioning to, but it is completely American.

Qwant is seeing some use, but its searches are generated from Bing API from what I understand.

Anyone know something purely European/Asian that supports English and is, you know, good?

Qwant is usable mostly. But with all things in live, if you don’t want to compromise, you can’t have stuff.

Qwant does use Bing API but it is having its own index and it is working on expanding it with the goal of becoming mostly or completely independent from. They have also joined forces with Ecosia to boost that process, so far with a focus on French and German searches. I don’t know how strong their work is on English content but if you are interested in a sovereign European search index, I think that is your answer, either Qwant or Ecosia. I don’t any other offer as ambitious in establishing that.

…qwant.com/…/ecosia-and-qwant-join-forces-to-deve…

Ecosia and Qwant join forces to develop European search index - Better Web

Ecosia and Qwant today reveal a new joint venture, European Search Perspective (EUSP), to develop and build search engine infrastructure in Europe. EUSP aims to contribute to digital sovereignty within Europe and ensure the continent has a strong, independent alternative to existing search technologies.

Better Web

Wow, getting downvotes for merely stating facts. You don’t have to like either of the two services, or consider their search performance good. That’s not what my response was about. Maybe consider about giving criticism or arguments next time?

blakestacey 1d ago

This is not debate club. Nor is it the room for gloating about how you, like, totally touched a nerve by providing facts and logic, bro.

Please enjoy your free trip to the egress.

WOW DOWNVOTES

you got 2 downvotes and no attention and threw a fucking tantrum, what is wrong with you

I have anti-recommendations:

kagi is a piece of shit run by a bigot who loves AI and anyone paying for it because they hate AI is embarrassing themselves. their fans will probably find and raid this thread because suppressing critique about the awful search engine you pay for monthly is a normal thing to do.
ecosia is a piece of shit doing extremely obvious greenwashing, and none of their claims about their LLM somehow magically being green pass muster. I don’t think ecosia has rabid fans, it’s pretty much for the kind of asshole who wants to feel good about the damage they’re doing to the planet.

best of luck with the recommendations

David Gerard 2d ago

i wish it didn’t

The kagi people are insufferable. No doubt this thread will precipitate a sea lion convention.

BlueMonday1984 2d ago

I switched to DuckDuckGo like a goddamn hipster years ago, nice to know I dodged a fucking artillery shell

blakestacey 2d ago

It can be buffaloed by Buffalo buffalo.

cosocial.ca/@mhoye/116619698305214911

mhoye (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image Looks like if you repeat any word enough the tool forgets what language you speak. This is actually pretty funny.

CoSocial

Its time to go back before internet, go offgrid