this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2024
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It blows my mind that these companies think AI is good as an informative resource. The whole point of generative text AIs is the make things up based on its training data. It doesn't learn, it generates. It's all made up, yet they want to slap it on a search engine like it provides factual information.
It really depends on the type of information that you are looking for. Anyone who understands how LLMs work, will understand when they'll get a good overview.
I usually see the results as quick summaries from an untrusted source. Even if they aren't exact, they can help me get perspective. Then I know what information to verify if something relevant was pointed out in the summary.
Today I searched something like "Are owls endangered?". I knew I was about to get a great overview because it's a simple question. After getting the summary, I just went into some pages and confirmed what the summary said. The summary helped me know what to look for even if I didn't trust it.
It has improved my search experience... But I do understand that people would prefer if it was 100% accurate because it is a search engine. If you refuse to tolerate innacurate results or you feel your search experience is worse, you can just disable it. Nobody is forcing you to keep it.
I think the issue is that most people aren't that bright and will not verify information like you or me.
They already believe every facebook post or ragebait article. This will sadly only feed their ignorance and solidify their false knowledge of things.
The same people who didn't understand that Google uses a SEO algorithm to promote sites regardless of the accuracy of their content, so they would trust the first page.
If people don't understand the tools they are using and don't double check the information from single sources, I think it's kinda on them. I have a dietician friend, and I usually get back to him after doing my "Google research" for my diets... so much misinformation, even without an AI overview. Search engines are just best effort sources of information. Anyone using Google for anything of actual importance is using the wrong tool, it isn't a scholar or research search engine.