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> “The thing with Search — we handle billions of queries,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai told The Verge on Monday when asked about the AI overview rollout. “You can

by bambax 2y ago

> “The thing with Search — we handle billions of queries,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai told The Verge on Monday when asked about the AI overview rollout. “You can absolutely find a query and hand it to me and say, ‘Could we have done better on that query?’ Yes, for sure. But in many cases, part of what is making people respond positively to AI Overviews is that the summary we are providing clearly adds value and helps them look at things they may not have otherwise thought about.” That's a really weird and risky way of putting it. There is a huge difference between being a search engine that finds (external) pages, and coming up with answers in your own name. If some page on the Internet says Obama is a Muslim, who cares, it's not important. But if Google says that Obama is in fact a Muslim, suddenly it's a very big deal. And that's true for every query, on every topic imaginable. Every answer they get wrong attacks their image a little, and out of billions of queries it's inevitable they will get many wrong. This forced, radical change motivated only by fear feels like Google+ all over again. Or New Coke.

throwitaway222 2y ago
It is highly unlikely it will say that, there's 10000x more articles on the fact that he isn't, and more specifically, the LLM would be "aware" (aware in this sense in that it would have possible next words with high rank) that there is a specific controversy over this. It's the long tail and new stuff that it will get wrong.
- awkwardpotato 2y ago
  > It is highly unlikely it will say that, there's 10000x more articles on the fact that he isn't Except this was an actual response that it was giving. Tweet from a related HN thread ~yesterday on Google search hallucinations: https://x.com/TVietor08/status/1793768913245020502 https://x.com/TVietor08/status/1793768913245020502
- trehalose 2y ago
  Google saying Obama is Muslim is not a hypothetical. It did say that.
nerdjon 2y ago
It’s such a flawed and dangerous perspective. It’s one thing for the search results to bubble up a wrong result. You go to it, and then you go back and look at more results to get a more complete picture. See where those different sites disagree and where they agree. But these AI results don’t do that. They are providing a single answer and confidently trying to come off as that is the answer. No fuzziness about its reliability. Every time it is right, it slowly could be deemed as reliable to a general population until it is dangerously wrong. But then you don’t question it since it was right so many other times.
- CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
  > You go to it, and then you go back and look at more results to get a more complete picture. See where those different sites disagree and where they agree. Me and others I know follow this workflow when we try to find out the answer to some question we don't know the answer to. But the vast majority of people outside of my own personal friend circle don't seem to approach it like this. Their approach looks more like: 1. Search for thing 2. Read the first info-box that pops up, if it does. That's what they think is 100% the correct information. If no info-box: 3. Read the short description for the first link that appears (sometimes an ad) and take that as the correct answer. Ideally, people would be more careful, but I haven't seen that in practice.
  - nerdjon 2y ago
    Yeah I guess I have honestly seen the same thing, my hands are full so I ask my partner to search something and the number of times he has said "google says x" makes me quite concerned. But at least those info boxes are not generating text on its own, it's what is on the website already and clearly includes a source. At least though, if you are even only looking at that first result it's still different than google ai generating an answer. Barely different, but different.
- rurp 2y ago
  Right, the domain itself is a huge signal. Information can have a very different meaning and trustworthiness if appears on the blog of a known expert vs the NYT vs some spam site like Quora. Google wants the only context to be Google. Even if the AI results are as good as organic ones, which is not a terribly high bar these days, it will be much less useful and trustworthy because nobody knows the provenance of the information. It's really unfortunate that Google is going to torch so much of the open internet in order to shovel this nonsense onto people. Of course as organic search traffic dries up and reduces new high quality content, and AI slop floods the internet, the GenAI results will get even worse.
Hasu 2y ago
> This forced, radical change motivated only by fear feels like Google+ all over again. Or New Coke. A year ago everyone was trashing Google for being ahead for years on the science of AI, but completely failing to productize it. "OpenAI is going to eat Google's search business for lunch", was the prevailing narrative. This is what people said they wanted! I'm sure it's clear to everyone now[0] that genAI is not a search solution, and Google's former approach of quietly putting AI into phones and products without it being flashy and in-your-face was actually a better strategy. [0] Just kidding, I'm certain that the industry and especially the people running Google will learn all the wrong lessons from this.
- CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
  > A year ago everyone was trashing Google for being ahead for years on the science of AI, but completely failing to productize it. "OpenAI is going to eat Google's search business for lunch", was the prevailing narrative. This is what people said they wanted! People say a lot of shit. Doesn't mean you should put your poorly performing Q&A AI to provide people with outright false answers, I'm pretty sure no one asked for that. After all, Google is running their own products, and when they make shitty choices, I think it's perfectly fair to question how they can make so bad decisions, no matter if I personally might have said "Google is failing to productize LLMs properly" or whatever.
- TylerLives 2y ago
  Idk, Perplexity sometimes gives me very good results compared to Google. Their AI also provides links to where the information is coming from.
- meiraleal 2y ago
  > "OpenAI is going to eat Google's search business for lunch", was the prevailing narrative. This is what people said they wanted One thing isn't related to the other. Actually most people noticing OpenAI/LLMs gonna displace Google enjoy the idea. Nobody is asking Google to give LLM results.
- renegade-otter 2y ago
  The problem is that Google effectively destroyed its classic search and is playing catch-up with AI. AI is the only lunch out there to be had in the first place. There is nothing else.
lithos 2y ago
All the meme-y wrong answers Google's AI is giving is really making them look like IBM. (Too large to die no matter how badly they fall behind). Some of the answers are insanely gross like recommendations to jump off the golden state bridge for depression.
- just_sayin1 2y ago
  That turned out to be a doctored photo, someone had just changed the script to make a fake answer
  - luyu_wu 2y ago
    I expect many are doctored considering just how many people know how to inspect element these days.
QuantumGood 2y ago
Large organizations expect to cause some harm as a "tax" built into the system; they are not very harm avoidant, they are more psychopathic (and often led by psychopaths). So new tech is used without much concern about creating harms. Sure, LLMs do amazing things, but so did all the previous once-disruptive technologies later widely adopted. Electricity, flight, nuclear energy, transistors and integrated circuits, the internet; AI is joining a very competitive list. We've just never seen a disruptive technology with this much media buzz behind it so quickly, and such rapid technological advances. Disruptive technologies are never "ready for prime time" ... until they are.
Kye 2y ago
The Google+ comparison is apt: a product rushed out in response to a perceived threat, on which the entire company is aligned and bet, with no regard for how that full-power triangulated focus killed whatever potential it had, if any. They flipped from missing the boat on transformers, a thing they created, to playing catchup on something that's probably mostly fad. It's like they decided to speed run the trust thermocline they were already in. We're a long way from this Yahoo killer making the rounds on AOL chats and IM.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
"Or New Coke." With New Coke, the public reaction was negative. In The Verge interview and elsewhere, Google claims the reaction to the current Google is positive.^1 No need for "Google Classic". 1. It's unlcear how Google concludes that people are happy with Google Search. It does not ask them.
- duhast2020 2y ago
  Google Opinion Rewards. It definitely asks them.
yndoendo 2y ago
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act currently protects Google, and others, when they link to other html posts within their search results. Wouldn't it become ineffective with AI acting as a publisher? Wouldn't false statements about individuals be liable and open them up to lawsuits? For example, AI making the statement some is a pedophile through hallucinations versus actual court outcomes.
daryl_martis 2y ago
[flagged]

by bambax 2y ago

throwitaway222 2y ago

It is highly unlikely it will say that, there's 10000x more articles on the fact that he isn't, and more specifically, the LLM would be "aware" (aware in this sense in that it would have possible next words with high rank) that there is a specific controversy over this. It's the long tail and new stuff that it will get wrong.

awkwardpotato 2y ago
> It is highly unlikely it will say that, there's 10000x more articles on the fact that he isn't Except this was an actual response that it was giving. Tweet from a related HN thread ~yesterday on Google search hallucinations: https://x.com/TVietor08/status/1793768913245020502 https://x.com/TVietor08/status/1793768913245020502
trehalose 2y ago
Google saying Obama is Muslim is not a hypothetical. It did say that.

nerdjon 2y ago

It’s such a flawed and dangerous perspective. It’s one thing for the search results to bubble up a wrong result. You go to it, and then you go back and look at more results to get a more complete picture. See where those different sites disagree and where they agree. But these AI results don’t do that. They are providing a single answer and confidently trying to come off as that is the answer. No fuzziness about its reliability. Every time it is right, it slowly could be deemed as reliable to a general population until it is dangerously wrong. But then you don’t question it since it was right so many other times.

CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
> You go to it, and then you go back and look at more results to get a more complete picture. See where those different sites disagree and where they agree. Me and others I know follow this workflow when we try to find out the answer to some question we don't know the answer to. But the vast majority of people outside of my own personal friend circle don't seem to approach it like this. Their approach looks more like: 1. Search for thing 2. Read the first info-box that pops up, if it does. That's what they think is 100% the correct information. If no info-box: 3. Read the short description for the first link that appears (sometimes an ad) and take that as the correct answer. Ideally, people would be more careful, but I haven't seen that in practice.
- nerdjon 2y ago
  Yeah I guess I have honestly seen the same thing, my hands are full so I ask my partner to search something and the number of times he has said "google says x" makes me quite concerned. But at least those info boxes are not generating text on its own, it's what is on the website already and clearly includes a source. At least though, if you are even only looking at that first result it's still different than google ai generating an answer. Barely different, but different.
rurp 2y ago
Right, the domain itself is a huge signal. Information can have a very different meaning and trustworthiness if appears on the blog of a known expert vs the NYT vs some spam site like Quora. Google wants the only context to be Google. Even if the AI results are as good as organic ones, which is not a terribly high bar these days, it will be much less useful and trustworthy because nobody knows the provenance of the information. It's really unfortunate that Google is going to torch so much of the open internet in order to shovel this nonsense onto people. Of course as organic search traffic dries up and reduces new high quality content, and AI slop floods the internet, the GenAI results will get even worse.

Hasu 2y ago

> This forced, radical change motivated only by fear feels like Google+ all over again. Or New Coke. A year ago everyone was trashing Google for being ahead for years on the science of AI, but completely failing to productize it. "OpenAI is going to eat Google's search business for lunch", was the prevailing narrative. This is what people said they wanted! I'm sure it's clear to everyone now[0] that genAI is not a search solution, and Google's former approach of quietly putting AI into phones and products without it being flashy and in-your-face was actually a better strategy. [0] Just kidding, I'm certain that the industry and especially the people running Google will learn all the wrong lessons from this.

CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
> A year ago everyone was trashing Google for being ahead for years on the science of AI, but completely failing to productize it. "OpenAI is going to eat Google's search business for lunch", was the prevailing narrative. This is what people said they wanted! People say a lot of shit. Doesn't mean you should put your poorly performing Q&A AI to provide people with outright false answers, I'm pretty sure no one asked for that. After all, Google is running their own products, and when they make shitty choices, I think it's perfectly fair to question how they can make so bad decisions, no matter if I personally might have said "Google is failing to productize LLMs properly" or whatever.
TylerLives 2y ago
Idk, Perplexity sometimes gives me very good results compared to Google. Their AI also provides links to where the information is coming from.
meiraleal 2y ago
> "OpenAI is going to eat Google's search business for lunch", was the prevailing narrative. This is what people said they wanted One thing isn't related to the other. Actually most people noticing OpenAI/LLMs gonna displace Google enjoy the idea. Nobody is asking Google to give LLM results.
renegade-otter 2y ago
The problem is that Google effectively destroyed its classic search and is playing catch-up with AI. AI is the only lunch out there to be had in the first place. There is nothing else.

lithos 2y ago

All the meme-y wrong answers Google's AI is giving is really making them look like IBM. (Too large to die no matter how badly they fall behind). Some of the answers are insanely gross like recommendations to jump off the golden state bridge for depression.

just_sayin1 2y ago
That turned out to be a doctored photo, someone had just changed the script to make a fake answer
- luyu_wu 2y ago
  I expect many are doctored considering just how many people know how to inspect element these days.

QuantumGood 2y ago

Large organizations expect to cause some harm as a "tax" built into the system; they are not very harm avoidant, they are more psychopathic (and often led by psychopaths). So new tech is used without much concern about creating harms. Sure, LLMs do amazing things, but so did all the previous once-disruptive technologies later widely adopted. Electricity, flight, nuclear energy, transistors and integrated circuits, the internet; AI is joining a very competitive list. We've just never seen a disruptive technology with this much media buzz behind it so quickly, and such rapid technological advances. Disruptive technologies are never "ready for prime time" ... until they are.

Kye 2y ago

The Google+ comparison is apt: a product rushed out in response to a perceived threat, on which the entire company is aligned and bet, with no regard for how that full-power triangulated focus killed whatever potential it had, if any. They flipped from missing the boat on transformers, a thing they created, to playing catchup on something that's probably mostly fad. It's like they decided to speed run the trust thermocline they were already in. We're a long way from this Yahoo killer making the rounds on AOL chats and IM.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

"Or New Coke." With New Coke, the public reaction was negative. In The Verge interview and elsewhere, Google claims the reaction to the current Google is positive.^1 No need for "Google Classic". 1. It's unlcear how Google concludes that people are happy with Google Search. It does not ask them.

duhast2020 2y ago
Google Opinion Rewards. It definitely asks them.

yndoendo 2y ago

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act currently protects Google, and others, when they link to other html posts within their search results. Wouldn't it become ineffective with AI acting as a publisher? Wouldn't false statements about individuals be liable and open them up to lawsuits? For example, AI making the statement some is a pedophile through hallucinations versus actual court outcomes.

daryl_martis 2y ago

[flagged]