Google Search going all in on A.I.

[Free]

NO MORE REWARDS.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

It will still hallucinate the results. Because hallucination is all it does.

endrift 🏳️‍⚧️ (@endrift@treehouse.systems)

Attached: 1 image The word for finger isn't even in this sentence

social.treehouse.systems

@endrift @joe that reminds me of this recent example i encountered where i came across a quote in someone's bio and wanted to know what it meant. google translate confidently decided it was italian and gave this response. i dont know italian but was pretty sure this looked nothing like italian so ended up looking harder and found that its a quote of a made up language from a song in a game.

if u turn off gemini then it more sensibly determines that it cant find a translation, but its on now by default

Of course LLMs are fantastic at translating a language you don't speak. I wonder why that is...

 

[Free]

DuckDuckGo enjoys 30% spike after users resent being "force fed" AI by Google

Just days after Google unveiled sweeping changes to its search engine at its annual I/O developer’s conference, DuckDuckGo said US app installs jumped by an average of 18% week over week between May 20th and May 25th.

It noted that growth sustained for six consecutive days, peaking at 30% on Monday – a Memorial Day bank holiday in the US.

 

[Beebo Brink]

This morning I installed the DuckDuckGo browser and made DDG my default search engine on Microsoft Edge. A few rough edges in the transition (my passwords won't import for some reason), but overall a positive experience.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Be aware, DDG also has AI "overviews" and you're supposed to be able to turn it off, but it has a really bad habit of mysteriously turning itself back on in my experience.

If you're using DDG as a default search engine, use this URL:

https://noai.duckduckgo.com/

That will completely avoid the slop features.

 

[Monica Dream]

From what I'm reading on Hacker News, the entire computing industry is burning through trillions of dollars on this shit and when they find out no one wants it and they aren't able to force patronage there's going to be a huge-ass economic crater.

 

[Beebo Brink]

From what I'm reading on Hacker News, the entire computing industry is burning through trillions of dollars on this shit and when they find out no one wants it and they aren't able to force patronage there's going to be a huge-ass economic crater.

There is definitely a market out there for some enthusiastic AI users, as well as other people (like myself) who may casually use it when it's free. The real question, however, is how many people will pay the full, unsubsidized cost of AI when the industry finally tries to make a profit.

It's an expensive service, and the data centers that are foundational to AI are not pulling their own weight in paying for energy & utility usage. They, too, have been heavily subsidized.

I mean, sure, we could convince people to take a helicopter to work every day if it shows up on their front lawn and whisks them away, all for $5/ride. Very convenient! Makes life so much easier! But once the subsidies end and the copter ride costs thousands of dollars, everyone will go back to using a car or even a bicycle to get to work.

 

[Noodles]

The other potential wall they face.

In theory, local AI models catch up with paid services. Why pay a rediculous amount for some privacy nightmare service when you can just run it on your own PC.

Also, people keep suggesting this islike the whole failed Raiload build out, or the dot com infrastructure build out, where even if if fails, we end up with useful infrastructure. But I am pretty sure most of this AI infrastructure is closer to crypto nonsense. Specialized hardware, not useful for much else that got pushed way too hard and is mostly used up.