Wow some terrible reporting about Google's latest horrible ideas about how to distort information access in the name of "convenience" (or something):
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But all the academic papers in the world showing why something is a bad idea won't stop companies from doing it, if it's profitable and/or fits into their quasi-religious beliefs that "AI" is the future, alas.
So let's look at what Google is up to now, or at least says they are, via TechCrunch as stenographer:
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@emilymbender Sometimes it feels like these people are trying to create a world from science fiction stories. For example, in Star Trek when they ask the computer something and it just gives them the answer. They don't understand that plenty of science fiction has no basis in reality and/or are terrible for how our brains actually work (like you've pointed out).
That or they are just greedy bastards that are looking to exploit anyone and everyone for a profit.
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More stenography here. Google starting shoving the "AI Overviews" into query results as an opt-out situation. That is, you have to take action to have them not pop up. I don't doubt they are *shown to* 2.5 billion monthly users, but that doesn't mean they are used by as many or desired by them.
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@emilymbender wait! You can opt out?!
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@mrmoore @emilymbender they don't want you to see the pages the search results link to, so they're trying to recreate that experience within search. Once you no longer check the sources, they can claim those sources say whatever Google wants them to have said
@sleepfreeparent @mrmoore @emilymbender Also they can show their ads on their platform without those pesky users nipping off to see the source of the information (and possibly supporting it in any way).
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How infantilizing --- you thought you were looking to find something that someone else wrote on the web. But woah! Now you've been "dropped into" an "interactive experience". Yeah, Google can just fuck right off with that.
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@emilymbender Oh, goodie. They've invented a guy who barges between you and the library shelves and proceeds to give you his vague recollection of what some of the books say. Sort of. Maybe. Unless he decides you were actually looking for something else.
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@whitequark @emilymbender surely. `import antigravity` in python, about 20+ years ago
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@whitequark @emilymbender surely. `import antigravity` in python, about 20+ years ago
@jackeric @emilymbender doesn't make it less cringe, of course
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@jackeric @emilymbender doesn't make it less cringe, of course
@whitequark @emilymbender indeed
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Wow some terrible reporting about Google's latest horrible ideas about how to distort information access in the name of "convenience" (or something):
https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/google-search-as-you-know-it-is-over/
A short thread
🧵>>@emilymbender
Good thing they block adblockers then aye? -
@sleepfreeparent @mrmoore @emilymbender Also they can show their ads on their platform without those pesky users nipping off to see the source of the information (and possibly supporting it in any way).
@DamonWakes @sleepfreeparent @emilymbender It's amazing how it's changed from want to get users out of search to websites, as quickly as possible. Now, it's the opposite. Keep users in search as long as possible and don't allow them escape to the websites.
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@ShadSterling @romli @hamishb @emilymbender use duckduckgo and you have simple ai opt out .
But anyway all this suppose there will be something left to search for on the web. Nowadays most often than not the first 10 links returned are AI generated web site slop.
Given that this slop is now used to generate further down the drain AI sites, the untrustworthy garbage'll soon supersede 100-1 trustworthy sources.Maybe we'll have to come back to human indexed content of a curated list of sites.
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@emilymbender i'm fucking weepi ng
Information-gathering agents are an evolution of Google
i have never observed google demonstrate any behavior that struck me as evidence of them gathering any form of information
Links will become an afterthought
that reminds me how they own the w3c and use it to ensure no one who has ever created a webpage will ever be able to show it to anyone without exposing them to the most openly broken cryptography i've ever seem
There’s little time left for publishers to adapt.
openly gloating
which will eventually be free
that's right. we will all be free. that's a cryptographic guarantee
@hipsterelectron @emilymbender
i have never observed google demonstrate any behavior that struck me as evidence of them gathering any form of information
except for them unethically gathering lots of information about you?
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@morqendi @tomtom @romli @hamishb @emilymbender the only time I use Google is when DDG results are useless so I prepend with “g! ” to try Google, and even the noai version doesn’t append “ -ai” so I still get the AI overview and an actual setting would still help.
I’ll try to remember to try prepending with “g! -ai “, but that’s not an acceptable way for them to interpret “opt out”
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Not satisfied to cut people off from the important sense-making of looking at information in its context and finding and navigating different perspectives (what "AI overviews" do), Google also wants to tell you what to search for:
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@emilymbender you know, I was just thinking
Google gave up on "don't be evil" at least a decade ago
while I worked there about five years ago, they gave up on "respect the user, respect the opportunity, respect each other"
now they seem to have given up on "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"
I hate that my livelihood is still tied to them.
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Here is where it really starts to show that this journalist is just lightly paraphrasing a press release. "Links will become an afterthought," will they? What is your evidence for that confident statement about the future?
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Yup
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NO NO NO NO NO! Flashy polished looking webpages that no one has accountability for run absolutely counter to the common good when it comes to a health information ecosystem AND an informed public.
(Also, "Antigravity"? Yeah, you want us to think this is very cool science fiction and/or magic. Not buying it.)
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Thank you for this thread and breakdown!
Antigravity is a fantastic name, though. A concept directly contrary to observable reality which can never provide what it purports to do, but which demands infinite money to research and build a la a Perpetual Motion machine? Perfect, and I look forward to them naming their future confidence tricks in a similar manner.
Google Phlogiston. Google Luminous Aether. Google Phrenology.
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Here is where it really starts to show that this journalist is just lightly paraphrasing a press release. "Links will become an afterthought," will they? What is your evidence for that confident statement about the future?
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@emilymbender I think jwz has opinions on links becoming "an afterthought"
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Spot the magical thinking here. No, the "AI" isn't making sense of anything. It's making papier-mache of the input, and preventing the use from doing the sense-making.
Also, is that the Pokemon sense of "evolution"?
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@emilymbender Traded while holding a
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Dubious_Disc -
Here is where it really starts to show that this journalist is just lightly paraphrasing a press release. "Links will become an afterthought," will they? What is your evidence for that confident statement about the future?
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@emilymbender What I especially like about "links will become an afterthought" is that the author outed himself as not bothering to click through on his research...
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@morqendi @tomtom @romli @hamishb @emilymbender the only time I use Google is when DDG results are useless so I prepend with “g! ” to try Google, and even the noai version doesn’t append “ -ai” so I still get the AI overview and an actual setting would still help.
I’ll try to remember to try prepending with “g! -ai “, but that’s not an acceptable way for them to interpret “opt out”
@ShadSterling @morqendi @tomtom @romli @hamishb @emilymbender
For these search cases, I use the DDG bang "sp!"
This way, it does the research on StartPage, which is some kind of anonymous and no-AI google page. -
@hamishb @emilymbender the best opt-out mode is using another search engine. Google search enshittification has been going on for at least 5 years. At this point it is just masochism to use it.
@lcwander @hamishb @emilymbender I'm genuinly surprised people still use Google for search, tbh.
