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Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

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Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#71

Post by scarface_74 »

wwweston wrote: post #18
m_ke wrote: post #8

SEO ruined the web, guided by Google's ranking algorithm. Things will get even worse as scammy companies start flooding the web with LLM generated content pushing their products to bias LLMs to increase the probability of outputing their name for keywords related to their business.

Libraries and librarians are starting to seem very relevant again. As are journalistic institutions.

Unfortunately, many of the “journalistic” institutions are owned by large corporations who aren’t going to “speak truth to power” in fear of retribution.

We just saw this with ABC News’s settlement with Trump because its owner Disney wanted to stay in his good graces.

We also saw this with Bezos owner Washington Post

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#72

Post by maximus_01 »

wwweston wrote: post #26
msoad wrote: post #17

I remember when the more tech savvy folks were migrating from Altavista and Yahoo to Google because they understood it is better sooner than others. The same thing is happening. I consider myself tech savvy (still!) and I have to admit that I rarely use Google for all sort of information. As a side note: I am using Safari and I noticed that Apple's search is also replacing my Google searches. In the past if I knew na…

Of course the savvy are using LLMs now, but they’re also reckoning with two things: * you have to check an LLM result, especially if it cites something (because it may or may not exist) * you can’t cite an LLM result It’s a useful tool, but it lacks certain utility features that a useful web + effective search has. Or had.

100%. But gradually being solved as source links are being provided. If the source link is as good as what you’d find on Google anyway then you have a way better search experience and don’t really burn much extra time checking the LLM work

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#73

Post by BiteCode_dev »

Once timeless facts will be solidified in AI training, like historical dates, laws of physics, maths formulas or specific programming API, there will be no reason to search for these things using Google.

The web battle will then happen on this moving quickly, like the news.

This will give immensely more power to the medias, and I fear that a lot given they have demonstrated time and again they can't be trusted with it.

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#74

Post by rkagerer »

scarface_74 wrote: post #59
nicbou wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answers come from the same websites. They just get stripped of their traffic. As someone who puts a ton of work into writing accurate, helpful guides, it's devastating to have my work plundered like that. Once these monopolies have successfully established themselves, they will become indistinguishable from the ad-invested websites they replace. The only difference is that they will create no new information of t…

How are you monetizing your website? Is it with ads?

Who says they need to monetize it? Is that the only value we ascribe to traffic, now?

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#75

Post by echelon »

scarface_74 wrote: post #59
nicbou wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answers come from the same websites. They just get stripped of their traffic. As someone who puts a ton of work into writing accurate, helpful guides, it's devastating to have my work plundered like that. Once these monopolies have successfully established themselves, they will become indistinguishable from the ad-invested websites they replace. The only difference is that they will create no new information of t…

How are you monetizing your website? Is it with ads?

It doesn't matter anymore. There won't be monetary reward, citation, personal brand building, or anything. Google just rips off the information, presents it as fact, and a visitor will never visit an author's original website again.

Websites are training data and will become an anachronism.

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#76

Post by TehCorwiz »

darknavi wrote: post #52
warner25 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But "search" and "getting an answer to a question" are two different things, aren't they? I realize that the trend has been going this way for a long time - probably since Ask Jeeves started blurring the line - and this is indeed how a lot of people try / want to use search engines, but still... I wish that Google (and competitors) would have separate pages for something like "Ask Google" vs. traditional search (wher…

Yes, they very much are two different things. I loath products like Facebook, Messenger, Google Photos, etc. are turning their traditional "search" page/feature into a one-stop AI slop shop. All I want to do is find a specific photo album by name.

If they provided what you're asking for you'd leave the site and look at fewer ads.

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#78

Post by moralestapia »

binkHN wrote: post #7

> Enter 2024 with AI. The top 20% of search results are a wall of text from AI... I'll be the contrarian here and say I actually like Google's AI Overview? For the first time in a long time, I can search for an answer to a question and, instead of getting annoying ads and SEO-optimized uselessness, I actually get an answer. Google is finally useful again. That said, once Google screws with this and starts making sear…

You're definitely a contrarian.

Google search is awfully bad these days.

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#79

Post by TeMPOraL »

Analemma_ wrote: post #38
GiorgioG wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Describes my general experience with AI across the board. Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, etc. It’s like I’m talking to a genius toddler. With ChatGPT losing 5 billion dollars on 3.7B in revenue this is unsustainable. It feels like the dotcom bubble all over again.

This is true, but fairly or unfairly, asking a question to a chat bot feels like “opting in” to the possibility that the answers you get will be hallucinated garbage, in a way that doing a Google search does not. It’s a tough problem for Google to overcome— the fact that they will be held to a higher standard—- but that’s what it is: we have already learned to accept bullshit from LLMs as a fact of life, whereas on t…

> we have already learned to accept bullshit from LLMs as a fact of life, whereas on the top of Google results it feels like an outrage.

Sort of. Top results for any kind of question that applies to general population - health, lifestyle, etc. - are usually complete bullshit too. It's all pre-AI slop known as content marketing.

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