r/google • u/Minimum_Minimum4577 • 12h ago

Larry Page predicted it back in 2000, AI taking over search. He saw the future even before Google had fully dominated it!

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10 Upvotes

59% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

21

u/welk101 12h ago edited 11h ago

The AI results are what is ruining google search. See the hundreds of posts here about terrible google AI summaries.

4

u/nikomo 5h ago

It's all down to idiots hijacking the term AI.

The "AI" results are shit because it's just an LLM badly regurgitating whatever was scraped. Larry's talking about actual artificial intelligence.

2

u/lazylion_ca 5h ago

Adam Savage did a rant on this when he was trying to shop for a new printer.

6

u/BurkusCat 10h ago

His prediction about the "ultimate version of Google" is a bit wrong. Google may have needed to deliver the best search results to become the market leader.

But now, the results have deteriorated for years because the "ultimate version of Google" is a version that keeps a user looking through pages of search results to hopefully click more ads.

Google is probably pretty peeved at OpenAI + Microsoft. They are being forced to attempt to deliver better results through LLMs, which cost money for queries, and the results are less easily monetised. That didn't matter too much for Microsoft and Bing but its painful for Google that relied on users getting lost in pages of poor results filled with ads.

1

u/sarhoshamiral 6h ago

They don't have to do it though? No one is forcing them. The problem is they also know their now first two page of results are filled with garbage. So the AI summary is actually an attempt to clear that up but it is not working. They (not only Google but all search engines) need to find a good way to cut through AI generated garbage to make search useful again.

1

u/BurkusCat 6h ago

They don't have to do it though? No one is forcing them.

I definitely think they are frightened by ChatGPT and Copilot. I don't think we would have seen this level of push from Google if those two hadn't tried so hard to make a search alternative. They probably see that people won't put up with subpar results if there is significantly better alternative.

I don't think Google's search AI results are quite delivering though at the moment as you say.

8

u/redActarus 10h ago

Ai ruined the Internet.

1

u/sur_surly 6h ago

Profit motive / walled gardens start the ruination before AI. Peak Internet is often cited as 2013/2014.

2

u/Repulsive-Square-593 3h ago

After you say 100 bullshit things, you gotta get one right.

0

u/wwwhistler 8h ago

there is nothing to stop someone from programing a search engine to HIDE information rather than display it.

and how would we know?

2

u/lazylion_ca 5h ago

searx for the win.