As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing
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Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing
#2It's hard to get past the beginning of this article and take it at all seriously. The quote someone who missed a sunset because they asked google and supposedly got the wrong time... but they didn't think to look at the sun or lack thereof to check? Also when I put "when does the sun set today" I get a single exact figure at the top of my results, not from AI, which is honestly the best kind of result – an exact correct answer.
Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing
#3From a user perspective, Google search is the most useful it has been in years, though that doesn't feel entirely like intentional improvement, just a lucky side effect of the move to "AI mode".
And yes, if you take what the AI tells you at face value it could be wrong. But if you are aware of this and aware of the ways in which LLMs are likely to shit the bed, it is quicker to get from request to useful information than it has been with Google search since like 2017.
And also, yes, the old balance of Google driving clicks to sites that will then generate revenue off more Google Ads being shown after you click through to them creating a virtuous cycle is completely busted, and that sucks. It does not impact me directly but it certainly seems like unless a better system is devised that it is one of a few ways in which AI is likely to stall out its own training funnel.
Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing
#4From a user perspective, Google search is the most useful it has been in years, though that doesn't feel entirely like intentional improvement, just a lucky side effect of the move to "AI mode". And yes, if you take what the AI tells you at face value it could be wrong. But if you are aware of this and aware of the ways in which LLMs are likely to shit the bed, it is quicker to get from request to useful information…
> But if you are aware of this and aware of the ways in which LLMs are likely to shit the bed, it is quicker to get from request to useful information than it has been with Google search since like 2017.
The point is not about 'quicker' requests but precise requests. It definitely has worsened, though not on a single degree on al levels like the HN hivemind claims, but some aspects are still somewhat precise but others are definitely crap.
i.e. when searching about my neighborhood it still returns better results than bing, yahoo, ddg, yandex and what have you. But they are buried into a load of crap of alleged "relevant" results (those things past the ai stuff) that aren't relevant in any way.
Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing
#5I occasionally use Google Search when DuckDuckGo fails to give me relevant. Almost always, Google has better results.
Though I can find its AI answers annoying aggressive. I'll look up like two search terms and the AI will bullshit multiple paragraphs out of despite having zero context of what I am looking for.
DuckDuckGo seems to have detection of whether it should give an AI answer. And it allows you to have more granular control of when you want to get an AI answer. And is overall less distracting than Google's.
Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing
#6It's hard to get past the beginning of this article and take it at all seriously. The quote someone who missed a sunset because they asked google and supposedly got the wrong time... but they didn't think to look at the sun or lack thereof to check? Also when I put "when does the sun set today" I get a single exact figure at the top of my results, not from AI, which is honestly the best kind of result – an exact corr…
They were planning their day for a specific time to be somewhere. If you're looking at the sun it's to late...
Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing
#7I spent the last three days (off and on) using Gemini to configure my edge router 4 with my iOS devices on a vpn and it's been awesome. In the past I'd do a google search and read a few sources of documentation, do another google search and read another set of documentation. Now, Gemini aggregates multiple pages together so all of the work of reading source docs from multiple locations is now n a single step.
Oh, I should mention though. There was no advertising at all. They didn't make any money off me. It was 100% Gemini which I recognize as not long-term feasible.
Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing
#8It would be beneficial for the author to look at the revenue for Google Search. Revenue is still growing.
Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing
#9It would be beneficial for the author to look at the revenue for Google Search. Revenue is still growing.
There is probably a lag time before advertisers give up on AdSense.
A lot of corporate ad spend is already planned, and Google can adjust the costs up as much as they like. They hold the lever.
Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing
#10It would be beneficial for the author to look at the revenue for Google Search. Revenue is still growing.
There is probably a lag time before advertisers give up on AdSense. A lot of corporate ad spend is already planned, and Google can adjust the costs up as much as they like. They hold the lever.
If search engine competitors were really eating Google's lunch then ad impressions would go down.