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If you're in the US, you might see a new shaded section at the top of your Google Search results with a summary answering your inquiry, along with links for more information. That section, generated by Google's generative AI technology, used to appear only if you've opted into the Search Generative Experience(SGE) in the Search Labs platform. Now, according to Search Engine Land, Google has started adding the experience on a "subset of queries, on a small percentage of search traffic in the US." And that is why you could be getting Google's experimental AI-generated section even if you haven't switched it on.

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[-] mypasswordis1234@lemmy.world 173 points 9 months ago
[-] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 68 points 9 months ago

Google Search was so good when it came out. Complete polar opposite to the cluttered and bloated Yahoo Search. Haven't really using it for years now because the search results became worse and worse, especially when that rounded edge theme came along.

[-] slaacaa@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago

It is useless in searching for new info, I mostly use it for searching for things I already know/seen, but don’t want to bother with URLs or bookmarks.

Even then, I have to scroll to the middle of the page, to get to the actual results below all the sponsored crap.

[-] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 10 points 9 months ago

No clutter, meant faster loading time, and that was important at the time. Nowadays, you can just type the search query to the address bar, but that wasn’t available back then. Initially, you didn’t even have one of those extra toolbars with a little search box, so loading the search page was the only way. If you do like 50 searches a day, those seconds spent on waiting the page to load really begin to add up.

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[-] BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.world 57 points 9 months ago

All the talk about how much computing power and electricity AI uses, and then Google and Bing just run it for every (most? many? some?) search.

[-] skooks@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

Isn't it the training of the models which is the most energy intensive? whereas generating some text in answer to a question is probably not super intensive. Caveat: I know nothing

[-] stsquad@lemmy.ml 43 points 9 months ago

Yes training is the most expensive but it's still an additional trillion or so floating point operations per generated token of output. That's not nothing computationally.

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[-] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 42 points 9 months ago

oh that's that same shit that bing does that ends up filling the top quarter of my search results page with useless chatGPT garbage that doesn't help my search query (both my employer and my school have forced edge+bing as the standard browser and it makes me want to die)

[-] herrcaptain@lemmy.ca 12 points 9 months ago

As someone in IT I get an employer enforcing Edge (I don't do that, but I understand why an IT department might), but why would anyone enforce a specific search engine? That seems bonkers to me.

[-] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 9 months ago

Well, it's the system default, and while you can change it during each session or manually browse to Google/DDG if you want, it will always reset the next time you log in.... I am incredibly lazy and 99% of the time will smash my super quick search into the omnibar and end up stuck with it until I eventually get mad enough at Bing to force keep a tab open with Google.

[-] herrcaptain@lemmy.ca 3 points 9 months ago

Ah, I see what you mean. That still sucks but at least you still have the (less convenient) option of using an alternative. I had understood it as being that they blocked everything but Bing.

[-] ryehypernova@lemmy.ml 4 points 9 months ago

you have my condolences :)

[-] MyNamesNotRobert@lemmynsfw.com 35 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Normal search results are already littered with useless ai generated seo optimized crap. It's got to the point where sometimes it's quicker to learn the knowledge you seek the old fashion way: by reading books.

Enshitification must lose.

[-] bbuez@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

🤓 Well you see actually we trained all our models off all historical text written by humans so it will be more human and you don't have to read again

Ive seen akin to this sentiment online and its very baffling

[-] MyNamesNotRobert@lemmynsfw.com 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Oh, they trained their ais off of that all right.. And then filtered out all the stuff they didn't like such as useful information.

[-] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

This is how google starts telling people that brawndo is what plants crave.

[-] Belgdore@lemm.ee 7 points 9 months ago

I just assume that these people never have any problems that they have to solve personally. Otherwise they would be frustrated by the inability to find necessary information. They are either rich or children or both.

[-] Texas_Hangover@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

Goddammit! Am I gonna have to relearn that Dewey decimal crap?

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 34 points 9 months ago

Duck duck gone.

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 34 points 9 months ago

I'll be looking for a uBlockOrigin filter when it hits for me

I try to avoid google search when I can, but this should solve the problem for the rest of the time

[-] squid_slime@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago

Plenty of other search engine that need your attention 🫠

[-] donio@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago

I wish that was the case but sadly most of them are basically Bing or Google frontends or belong to entities that I trust even less. As far as I can tell there are very few independent crawls out there.

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[-] Clbull@lemmy.world 33 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

This may actually be a net improvement to the Google Search experience, since the engine is borderline unusable without uBlock Origin. But also it feels weird that Google would make an AI generated prompt the focal point and not the entire rows of sponsored ads that litter all search results.

How did the big tech industry get this terminally stupid?

[-] GlassHalfHopeful@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

...the engine is borderline unusable without uBlock Origin.

~~Chris~~, would you elaborate more on this experience?

Update: Who's Chris? Curse you, speech to text.

[-] JimboDHimbo@lemmy.ca 11 points 9 months ago

I'm not Chris, but it's all the dang "sponsored" search results that populate when googling without using uBlock Origin.

[-] dezmd@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

Ive used UBO so long I forget regulwr people see a diffeent internet. Google results are still suffering.

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[-] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago

Almost every time I ask a direct question, the two AI answers almost always directly contradict each other. Yesterday I asked if vinegar cuts grease. I received explanations for both why its an excellent grease cutter, and why it doesn't because it's an acid.

[-] time_fo_that@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago

I think this will be a major issue with AI. Just because it was trained on a huge wealth of knowledge doesn't mean that it was trained on correct knowledge.

[-] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 8 points 9 months ago

Just because it was trained on a huge wealth of knowledge doesn't mean that it was trained on correct knowledge.

Which makes its correct answers and it's confidently wrong answers look as plausible as each other. One needs to apply real intelligence to determine which to trust, makikg the AI tool mostly useless.

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[-] Murdoc@sh.itjust.works 8 points 9 months ago

Showing different viewpoints in order to not appear biased. It's the cornerstone of democracy after all.

😛

[-] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago

Yes, you can cure cancer according to the results......

  1. Dr Williams Oz. Cancer pill center 3)I ate a corn dog and it cured my can...
  2. research into cancer cures has come u...
  3. at McDonald's we too have canc...
  4. the best cancer cures by Motley Fo...
  5. top 20 best ways to iPhone your canc...
[-] Gamers_Mate@kbin.social 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It should be illegal to force people to use generative ai to do things it is not needed for.
Seeing Microsoft's plans to add ai to windows was the last straw that made me change to linux.

[-] pennomi@lemmy.world 24 points 9 months ago

Nobody forces you to use Google, and frankly we should all take a little more time to degoogle our lives.

[-] KnightontheSun@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

Startpage is what I use at the moment and it’s been fine. Am trying to decouple from the googs too.

[-] Kbin_space_program@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Is amusing that bing moved their AI results to the bottom of the page.

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[-] Pistcow@lemm.ee 16 points 9 months ago

Bing does that shit and it's annoying.

[-] Gamers_Mate@kbin.social 4 points 9 months ago

Ecosia added ai chat which I think runs on the same thing as copilot. I don't see the point though and would like to be able to hide the ai chat option.

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 16 points 9 months ago

Half the top results are usually AI generated garbage anyway, don't see how a little more is going to hurt...

[-] FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 9 months ago

another win for the startpage gang

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[-] time_fo_that@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

I got a Google Gemini "text message" in Google messages today. I couldn't find a way to turn it off, so I just blocked and reported it as spam lol

[-] Zotora@programming.dev 10 points 9 months ago

I'll add it to my list of reasons not to use google

[-] eronth@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

Lol. The generated result that is incomplete and slower than the rest of the search. I usually scroll past it because it's not done generating. If it does generate fast enough, it's usually too vague or broad

[-] spyd3r@sh.itjust.works 9 points 9 months ago

Just give me back the results from the 00's era of google. They need to go backwards not ""forwards"".

[-] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 9 months ago

Oh, Google though their search results weren't crappy enough, so the decided to make them even worse.

[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 3 points 9 months ago

Well now what am I supposed to switch to after DuckDuckGo didn't give relevant results?

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this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
346 points (98.3% liked)

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