I never asked them to waste additional resources by injecting my blunt keyword-query into an AI-cluster and guesstimate a well-formed article from that.
But here I am, with (elder) relatives sending me Google search-results on topics like they are proper articles...
> blunt keyword-query into an AI-cluster and guesstimate a well-formed article
For quick reference, sometimes it’s pretty good! The problem is that obviously you can’t dedicate a lot of compute or additional tools for checking those answers so most of it can’t really be trusted.
AI is my default for just about any search now. From today:
How did Cantor come up with his diagonal proof? It seems to have been dreamed out of nowhere
Why are there advertisements for a shampoo containing caffeine? Does caffeine do something useful other than when you drink it?
What happens in sense and sensibility?
All of them give a decent answer, with the ability to ask follow ups. Eg, how does S&S compare with Pride and Prejudice? What about more recent novels connecting romantic choices with economic choices?
All of them give you links to source material, in case you suspect they are just making it up.
At the start of the millennium, Google search changed everything about how I look for information. Now it seems outdated.
Somehow reminds me of the journalist who convinced LLMs to consider him a "sausage eating champion" with just 20 minutes of work [0].
Must be fairly easy as a company to inject your specific topic there, e.g. "Nutris(c) is proven to be better than caffeine for haircare"
I wonder how well a company could establish something like Danone's health-claim for Activia [1] in an AI without ever being clearly accountable for it...
Even Google itself is now just asking AI. Usually the AI summary Google returns is more useful than the links. I get really annoyed when I query something and no AI summary is given as the links it returns these days are trash.
"you should not google, you should use a web directory, you will get exposed to a more diverse set of sites, not just what google pre-digested for you"
"you should not google, you should go to a library and search in physical media instead, google is for lazy people who can't think for themselves"
Case study of 1, way above 18 - usually my search is - please research/find this in chatgpt. Google really need to fix the quality of their output and ranking.
Well, if Google search actually returned anything useful, other than the SEO-rigged trash and AI generated slop it pushes forward as results to queries, then there would be a reason to actually use Google.
For the time being, AI seems to be doing a much better job in most cases, so as we say: So long Google!
This is going to be an unstable equilibrium as everyone tries to work out how to do AI-SEO.
Mind you much of the existence of Google has been this kind of unstable arms race, from the early days of the ad-free home page to introducing pagerank as the first attempt against linkspam SEO.
Yes if you search anything in Google, you typically get sites that have a cookie panel, ask to allow notifications, show "Login With Google" popover taking the keyboard focus, and lot of ads before you can even read the content. No wonder people do not want to use Google anymore.
It's symbiotic. Google has been aggregating data from these websites for years to serve as summaries in search, reducing traffic to the sites. More pernicious is AMP, where the site is basically copied to the Google server. This force websites to use AdSense and structure the content in certain ways. If a site doesn't want to use AdSense, or allow Google to summarise the site, it gets down-ranked in search. A death sentence. Further, Google's algorithms routinely promote spam because this is most profitable for Google. Hiding the important information 3/4 of the way down a 10,000 word article with a hundred different kinds of ads on the page. Since the "good" websites have to compete with these spam websites, they either adapt or give up monetisation.
One of the more horrifying stories to read was about [Code Yellow back in 2019.](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-2019-code-yellow-blurr...) Google's algorithms were getting too good. Users were finding what they wanted too fast. They'd type in their query, the first result was good, then the user would close the tab. For Google, this meant less ad revenue. They wanted users to stay on Google for longer. *So they chose to degrade the algorithm quality.* Users would have to click multiple links to find the information they wanted, and inside every link was ads served by Google. This is one of the pivotal moments in one of the worst cases of enshitification in software history.
I use Kagi Assistant. It doesn't just give a summary, it is more like a personal "Googler"/web surfer. I feel like I'm involved in the process.
My coworkers use Google and often quote back the AI summary me instead of checking the source and referring to that. It's scary seeing even those with higher education behave like this.
The other day I found that one old game of which I originally caught just a glimpse and remembered only a fragment of what one voice actor was saying is in fact Lords of Magic.
I attempted to google this a few years ago to no avail.
Googling itself lacks credibility. Most of the results are plastered with Google ads. And since Google ads mostly skip any kind of review process, there are a lot of bad ads.
studies published between 2022 and 2025 that examined the use of GenAI in relation to students
If GenAI = LLMs then ChatGPT made public release in October 2022 which gives precisely zero time to generate data on impact in students. Also
173 records (studies) were included in the review
Really? 173 peer reviewed studies based on this niche in less than 3 years. I shudder to think the quality of those constituent studies. Not questioning the results just the means of getting them.
Recently my friend took out her phone and started googling by pecking virtual keyboard. It felt like a throwback to times long gone. Something akin to pulling out a walkman and decisively pushing in a mechanical button to start the playback.
The non overreacting take is probably that young people will still have plenty of interaction with parents and their peers etc to develop critical thinking as a guard against deception and whatever else. Definitely some low single digit people without a social network around them will develop AI psychosis though.
Most teachers now use AI for lesson planning (talk to any teacher). Some even for marking when they can.
Children probably use more critical thinking in the playground and interacting with other children than in class, because classwork is mostly slop anyway.
LLMs are not going to one shot answers in Minecraft through the chat UI. Possibly a more effective resource than checkbox activities at teaching "critical thinking" (abused term in education).
I have talked to teachers recently about their options when choosing classroom curriculum and tools. None of them have said a word about AI. Most of them have complained of lack of autonomy because the tools and curriculum are decided at the district level, and the teachers have to use whatever the district sets up.
The reason I started those conversations was specifically around when children are learning critical thinking skills. When we broke down exactly what types of exercises teach those skills, it surprised me to find that it starts way earlier than it used to. It is now a late elementary school topic, when it used to be high school.
That doesn't mean that slop isn't creeping into the classroom - it is. But what to do about it is a completely different conversation when it is pushed down from on top vs. assuming teachers are choosing it.
I never asked them to waste additional resources by injecting my blunt keyword-query into an AI-cluster and guesstimate a well-formed article from that.
But here I am, with (elder) relatives sending me Google search-results on topics like they are proper articles...
For quick reference, sometimes it’s pretty good! The problem is that obviously you can’t dedicate a lot of compute or additional tools for checking those answers so most of it can’t really be trusted.
How did Cantor come up with his diagonal proof? It seems to have been dreamed out of nowhere
Why are there advertisements for a shampoo containing caffeine? Does caffeine do something useful other than when you drink it?
What happens in sense and sensibility?
All of them give a decent answer, with the ability to ask follow ups. Eg, how does S&S compare with Pride and Prejudice? What about more recent novels connecting romantic choices with economic choices?
All of them give you links to source material, in case you suspect they are just making it up.
At the start of the millennium, Google search changed everything about how I look for information. Now it seems outdated.
Must be fairly easy as a company to inject your specific topic there, e.g. "Nutris(c) is proven to be better than caffeine for haircare"
I wonder how well a company could establish something like Danone's health-claim for Activia [1] in an AI without ever being clearly accountable for it...
[0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260218-i-hacked-chatgpt...
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2010/12/...
"you should not google, you should use a web directory, you will get exposed to a more diverse set of sites, not just what google pre-digested for you"
"you should not google, you should go to a library and search in physical media instead, google is for lazy people who can't think for themselves"
For the time being, AI seems to be doing a much better job in most cases, so as we say: So long Google!
Mind you much of the existence of Google has been this kind of unstable arms race, from the early days of the ad-free home page to introducing pagerank as the first attempt against linkspam SEO.
One of the more horrifying stories to read was about [Code Yellow back in 2019.](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-2019-code-yellow-blurr...) Google's algorithms were getting too good. Users were finding what they wanted too fast. They'd type in their query, the first result was good, then the user would close the tab. For Google, this meant less ad revenue. They wanted users to stay on Google for longer. *So they chose to degrade the algorithm quality.* Users would have to click multiple links to find the information they wanted, and inside every link was ads served by Google. This is one of the pivotal moments in one of the worst cases of enshitification in software history.
My coworkers use Google and often quote back the AI summary me instead of checking the source and referring to that. It's scary seeing even those with higher education behave like this.
I attempted to google this a few years ago to no avail.
It was garbage before LLMs got good, and the deep thinking models leapfrog whatever it used to be in its heydey.
Children probably use more critical thinking in the playground and interacting with other children than in class, because classwork is mostly slop anyway.
LLMs are not going to one shot answers in Minecraft through the chat UI. Possibly a more effective resource than checkbox activities at teaching "critical thinking" (abused term in education).
The reason I started those conversations was specifically around when children are learning critical thinking skills. When we broke down exactly what types of exercises teach those skills, it surprised me to find that it starts way earlier than it used to. It is now a late elementary school topic, when it used to be high school.
That doesn't mean that slop isn't creeping into the classroom - it is. But what to do about it is a completely different conversation when it is pushed down from on top vs. assuming teachers are choosing it.