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The beginning of this article is why I never trusted AI for search. You can get really good results from search engines if you know how to use them and are wil
by nunez 1y ago
The beginning of this article is why I never trusted AI for search.
You can get really good results from search engines if you know how to use them and are willing to check the sources.
With AI as the search engine, you get what you get. This works well for a lot of searches, but not for everything.
Some engines, like Perplexity, Kagi and Gemini-enabled Google Search, will give you the sources they used in generating its response. This is fine, but for anything moderately complicated, this isn't enough, IMO.
For example: my wife was looking for a way to deter squirrels from eating out of our bird feeder. Gemini told her that we can use spicy bird feed to do this. It also provided a source. Great!
However, when you opened the sourced article, you'll see that Gemini's response completely failed to mention that not only is the spicy bird feed option a mild deterrant at best (squirrels will eat damn near anything if they're desperate enough), but it also failed to mention the two other MUCH BETTER options that were in the article! (Make the feeder free standing on a squirrel-proof pole, and some other option I forgot.)
I'm sure my wife could've told Gemini that the answer was incomplete to get a better response out of it. However, that perfectly underscores the problem I have with the tech in its current state: you're getting some inaccurate representation of the truth while also stealing market share from the authors and companies that shared their knowledge online to begin with.
I also don't think AI search is SEO proof either. People will figure out how to bend Gemini to its will. Given that most people will use natural language queries, the Wendy's [] singularity is almost inevitable.
[] Wendy's, a fast-food chain in the US, has an excellent social media team. I wouldn't be surprised if they find a way of getting every Gemini/Bing OpenAI search to work Wendy's in somehow!
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoYou're not thinking big enough. Wendy's will be sold their way into conversational LLM output and it will be the start of a new era of undisclosed advertising.
- jazzyjackson 1y agoSlinky attached to the bottom of the bird feeder, draping down the freestanding pole. Squirrel will have to grab the slinky, slinky will provide elevator ride back to ground level.
- thunderfork 1y ago[dead]
- actsasbuffoon 1y agoI had one the other day where the AI search engine gave me a very odd result that got several important details blatantly wrong, and then started getting into weird right-wing conspiracy territory. I checked the sources and it turns out that the first source it pulled in was from some kooky religious organization. This isn’t a huge problem with search as it existed 5 years ago. You’ll see the URL and say, “That doesn’t sound like a reliable source. I’m going to scroll down a little further.” But with AI search, the authorship is less obvious. It looks like the AI is saying it, rather than the AI just mashing together a bunch of search results with some garbage in the mix. It allows creeps, kooks, and nutballs to launder their ideas by getting AI to repeat their garbage. It was a concerning interaction, and I worry how many impressionable people are being fed weird cult-spam while thinking that it’s legitimate because they don’t realize where it’s coming from.