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Google will start showing AI-powered search results to users who didn't opt in (www.engadget.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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If you're in the US, you might see a new shaded section at the top of your Google Search results with a summary answering your inquiry, along with links for more information. That section, generated by Google's generative AI technology, used to appear only if you've opted into the Search Generative Experience(SGE) in the Search Labs platform. Now, according to Search Engine Land, Google has started adding the experience on a "subset of queries, on a small percentage of search traffic in the US." And that is why you could be getting Google's experimental AI-generated section even if you haven't switched it on.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

No. A lot of times I'm looking to compare many answers. I'll give you an example.

If I want to look for interesting barbecue rubs that I haven't tried before I'll query a search engine. Historically (not so much recently) Google has been better at searching through forums than a direct forum search. So I can check many different sources for the ratios people are using and make my decision.

Google's half baked AI is really terrible right now. It has a memory of about two answers, barely understands context, and hallucinates more often than both copilot and ChatGPT.

Now I'm looking for a coffee rub and it's giving me injection advice (happened when I tested Gemini), it gets barbecue styles mixed up, doesn't follow dietary restrictions that are explicitly stated, and will give you recipes for the wrong cut and type of meat.

It's not ready, and anyone trusting it for an answer to a question is going to have a bad time. If you have to verify it by checking a bunch of links anyway then it's not only worthless, it's making search take longer and take up screen real estate.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Now I'm looking for a coffee rub and it's giving me injection advice

Wooooo what?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Brisket coffee rub is fairly common. I only know one guy who uses a coffee injection because it's not common, although other injections are pretty common for brisket.

I have no idea why it went off on that particular tangent. I guess whatever barbecue data it was trained on had a lot of injection advice along with the coffee rubs.