Comment by sanitycheck
7 hours ago
Yep. For years we've been telling people to 'just fucking google it', and now when they do they're getting bullshit AI answers.
Worst thing is, some of these bullshit answers will be medical, some of them financial, it seems pretty certain people are being harmed.
Yeah the Google AI results are more dangerous than ChatGPT, not only because it uses a smaller model but because Google's knowledge graph used to deliver very accurate and authoritative information but now that's been replaced by a stochastic system in the same place, so people are used to trusting it.
I think we’re getting what we deserve by snarkily telling people to Google stuff instead of answering accurately. Google results have never ever been pure accuracy
It seems to me one needs to consider the complexity of the question they are asking before searching it.
To stick with your post, consider people asking medical or financial questions. For a wide variety of reasons, many of such questions don't have an answer. In such cases, AI is still going to take a crack at it. AI shouldn't be blamed for "bullshit answers" to such questions.
Before using AI, I think people should stop and ask themselves, "Is there really a single answer to this question? Is AI the right choice?"
The problem is Google's AI results get even simple factual questions wrong all the time.
Earlier today, I searched "pixel 10 wifi 7" because I was confused that GSMArena showed my Pixel 8 supports Wifi 7, but the Pixel 10 only Wifi 6. Gemini confidently claimed that the Pixel 10 does support Wifi 7 -- but that's not true at all. Only the Pixel 10 _Pro_ supports it, as I discovered when actually reading the non-AI search results.
And this is a question about a Google product!
I had a similar thing when I was gooling a few days ago, I can't remember exactly but it was like "why does [product] not support [feature]" and the AI summary was confidently wrong, saying "The product does support [feature]", which knew was completely incorrect, and I did find a Reddit discussion or something in the actual results with discussions that were actually about what I was looking for!
It's really depressing how bad things are getting...
Admittedly I’m unsure if it was Google or DuckDuckGo. I switch between both. I quickly asked the in search AI for a UTC time conversion like a lazy fool and it got it off by almost a day wrong.
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My google search for 'pixel 10 wifi 7' immediately shows the right answer. (10 Pro and 10 Pro XL support it but, but base Pixel 10 only supports Wifi 6E).
Though the inconsistency of results between users is definitely another frustrating thing.
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Ok, fair. Hard to understand why it would get that wrong.
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I asked it “how can I tell if a spray paint can is empty?” And it told me that the paint can would no longer rattle.
When the default "search" results are AI, it's difficult, if not impossible, to "choose", since Google is pushing the AI so hard.
In watching the demo, I didn't come away with the impression that they were removing search results. Yes, they are pushing AI hard, but users can still opt to use Google in the more traditional way. Unless I misunderstood the demo, it's definitely possible to choose.
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> one needs to consider the complexity of the question they are asking before searching...consider people asking medical or financial questions...many of such questions don't have an answer. In such cases, AI is still going to take a crack at it. AI shouldn't be blamed for "bullshit answers"...people should stop and ask themselves, "Is there really a single answer to this question?
It's a bold position to say that it's the users fault for being lied to by Google. There isn't a "single answer" to most questions. It's still Google's job to provide answers that are accurate and reflect the best information available on complicated topics. That's what they're trying to sell us anyway. When google's AI can't live up to the hype "You shouldn't be asking AI such difficult questions" is not a great response, especially when people are just trying to get web search results and AI is suddenly interrupting with an opinion nobody asked for.
In past, people can trust Google. Now we should teach children don't trust "search result" from Google.
To be fair - for all of those years Google has been serving up some atrocious results - remember when googling health symptoms got you rabies or pregnancy.
There's even the meme where people ask if the code was the result of a stack overflow question, or answer