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Yeah I really don't believe that this is really the case, especially when we had a report recently saying clicks are down. It has become shockingly common to s

Yeah I really don't believe that this is really the case, especially when we had a report recently saying clicks are down. It has become shockingly common to see people sharing a screenshot of an AI response as evidence to back up their argument. I was once busy with something so I asked my partner if he could look up something for me, he confidently shared a screenshot of an AI response from Google. It of course was completely wrong and I had to do my own searching anyways (annoyingly needing to scroll past and ignore the AI response that kept trying to tell me the same wrong information). We have to remember that google is incentivized to keep people on Google more. Their ability to just summarize stuff instead of getting people off of google as quickly as possible is a gold mine for them, of course they are going to push it as hard as possible.

9rx 1y ago
> especially when we had a report recently saying clicks are down. Isn't that expected from "higher quality clicks"?
amarcheschi 1y ago
If I search "why is rum healthy", ai overview tells this, which is... Laughable: While not a health drink, moderate consumption of rum may offer some potential benefits, primarily due to its antioxidant content and potential to improve circulation and reduce stress. Darker rums, in particular, contain higher levels of antioxidants from the aging process in wooden barrels, which can help neutralize free radicals. Additionally, rum may have a relaxing effect and can be a social lubricant, potentially reducing stress and promoting relaxation when consumed in moderation.
- extr 1y ago
  Why is that laughable? Rum isn't a health drink, but if you were looking for information to support the case that it has some health benefits (which is literally the search term)...seems like a reasonable answer. What did you expect? A moralistic essay on how alcohol is bad?
  - pessimizer 1y ago
    A lot of people are desperate for AI to lecture to them from a position of authority, consider it broken when it doesn't, and start praying to it when it does. edit: AI doesn't even have a corrupting, disgusting physical body, of course it should be recommending clean diets and clean spirits!
  - apwell23 1y ago
    there is no antioxidant health benefits from rum. how is making stuff up reasonable.
    - nsonha 1y ago
      people make stuff up and post online. You will find made up shit with or without AI with that kind of query. So yes, it's reasonable that AI exposes you to the real Internet, and it's doing, at worst, as good a job as search engines.
      - apwell23 1y ago
        > reasonable that AI exposes you to the real Internet, Any response will be 'reasonable' by that standard.
        what 1y ago
        The AI overview is just summarizing the top results. You’d find the exact same information if it wasn’t there and just clicked the search results.
        apwell23 1y ago
        > The AI overview is just summarizing the top results. Nope
        nsonha 1y ago
        nope what, here's a tip: next time add "truth only" in your query, it works!
- nerdjon 1y ago
  So I was curious, in normal google search (with the AI summary) I put in "why is rum healthy" I got this, and then it listed a bunch of benefits: "Rum, when consumed in moderation, may offer a few potential health benefits. These include possible positive effects on heart health due to its potential to increase HDL (good) cholesterol, and the presence of antioxidants in darker rums, which may be beneficial." But if I just simply remove the "why" it clearly states "Rum is an alcoholic beverage that does not have any significant health benefits." Man I love so much that we are pushing this technology that is clearly just "garbage in, garbage out". Side Note: totally now going to tell my doctor I have been drinking more rum next time we do blood work if my good cholesterol is still a bit low. I am sure he is going to be thrilled. I wonder if I could buy rum with my HSA if I had a screenshot of this response... (\s if really necessary)
  - mattmaroon 1y ago
    Well, both of those are arguments humans have repeated quite a bit. The first one is pretty weak (and you can guess who funded the “science” behind it) but it is believed by many. Asking AI to tell reality from fiction is a bit much when the humans it gets its info from can’t, but this is at least not ridiculous.
    - nerdjon 1y ago
      > Asking AI to tell reality from fiction is a bit much when the humans it gets its info from can’t, but this is at least not ridiculous. I agree with that, but the problem is that it is being positioned as a reliable source of information. And is being treated as such. Google's disclaimer "AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more" only shows up if you click the button to show more of the response, is smaller text, a light gray, and clearly overshadowed by the button with lights rotating around it to do a deep dive. The problem is just how easy it is to "lead on" one of these models. By simply stating a search like "why is rum healthy" implies that I already think it is healthy so of course it leads into that but that is why this is so broken. But "is rum healthy" actually provides a more factual answer: > Rum is an alcoholic beverage that does not have any significant health benefits. While some studies have suggested potential benefits, such as improved blood circulation and reduced risk of heart disease, these findings are often based on limited evidence and have not been widely accepted by the medical community.
- kingstnap 1y ago
  Are the results any different from the AI overview? Cause I assume Google search is not trying to "fix" your question and just returns relevant results. And being an "AI overview" and not an "AI answer" it should just overview the results. The whole "Why is (false statement)?" Is an old issue and I'm not entirely convinced the Gemini lite model doing AI overviews is who we hope to fix that.
- skeledrew 1y ago
  TBF it's merely providing a summary of the top (SEO) results. The quarrel/ridicule should be with/of the sites providing that content.
- dyauspitr 1y ago
  I mean I understand this response. You’re specifically asking it why rum is healthy so it’s giving you the few positive things that are potentially healthy about consuming rum.
  - amarcheschi 1y ago
    A bit unrelated, but I did this because a few days ago I made a web search like "spirit free rum" or something similar, and in the tab slightly below the top with similar results and answers there was the first being "why rum is healthy" which said similar things to what I got with Ai overview. This is in italian though so ymmv in other languages
- beala 1y ago
  Google's "AI Overview" feature is particularly bad. o3 gives the following response: > Short answer: it isn’t. Rum isn’t “healthy” any more than other booze. It goes on to give a bulleted list on why it's not healthy. Full output: https://chatgpt.com/share/6894871f-be9c-800e-8cc9-9e5ec2d5d6c0 https://chatgpt.com/share/6894871f-be9c-800e-8cc9-9e5ec2d5d6... A sibling comment speculated that Google's response is expected because it's just a summary of bad search results. To test this, I ran a fresh query against o3 with the Web Search option enabled. The results: > Rum is a tasty way to get ethanol into your body, but it is not a health food. Any modest upsides you may have read about (a bump in “good” HDL cholesterol, slight blood-thinning, a bit of antioxidant pickup from barrel aging) are the same things you’d get from any spirit, and recent large studies show those benefits are either tiny or disappear once you control for lifestyle. Meanwhile the well-documented downsides—cancer risk, liver disease, high blood pressure, weight gain, addiction, injuries—kick in from the first drink. It goes on to give an extensive debunking of all the nonsense health benefits in the Google summary. It looks like it saw the same search results but was able to course correct and view those results with a more skeptical eye. Full output: https://chatgpt.com/share/6894885d-51dc-800e-ab8c-55af0a5bb295a https://chatgpt.com/share/6894885d-51dc-800e-ab8c-55af0a5bb2... This post is about Google, so it's fair to focus on their search product, but I'd be careful to generalize to other LLMs. There are huge differences in quality between different models.
moi2388 1y ago
You can add “-ai” to the search term to remove the google AI result

9rx 1y ago

> especially when we had a report recently saying clicks are down. Isn't that expected from "higher quality clicks"?

amarcheschi 1y ago

If I search "why is rum healthy", ai overview tells this, which is... Laughable: While not a health drink, moderate consumption of rum may offer some potential benefits, primarily due to its antioxidant content and potential to improve circulation and reduce stress. Darker rums, in particular, contain higher levels of antioxidants from the aging process in wooden barrels, which can help neutralize free radicals. Additionally, rum may have a relaxing effect and can be a social lubricant, potentially reducing stress and promoting relaxation when consumed in moderation.

extr 1y ago
Why is that laughable? Rum isn't a health drink, but if you were looking for information to support the case that it has some health benefits (which is literally the search term)...seems like a reasonable answer. What did you expect? A moralistic essay on how alcohol is bad?
- pessimizer 1y ago
  A lot of people are desperate for AI to lecture to them from a position of authority, consider it broken when it doesn't, and start praying to it when it does. edit: AI doesn't even have a corrupting, disgusting physical body, of course it should be recommending clean diets and clean spirits!
- apwell23 1y ago
  there is no antioxidant health benefits from rum. how is making stuff up reasonable.
  - nsonha 1y ago
    people make stuff up and post online. You will find made up shit with or without AI with that kind of query. So yes, it's reasonable that AI exposes you to the real Internet, and it's doing, at worst, as good a job as search engines.
    - apwell23 1y ago
      > reasonable that AI exposes you to the real Internet, Any response will be 'reasonable' by that standard.
      - what 1y ago
        The AI overview is just summarizing the top results. You’d find the exact same information if it wasn’t there and just clicked the search results.
        apwell23 1y ago
        > The AI overview is just summarizing the top results. Nope
        nsonha 1y ago
        nope what, here's a tip: next time add "truth only" in your query, it works!
nerdjon 1y ago
So I was curious, in normal google search (with the AI summary) I put in "why is rum healthy" I got this, and then it listed a bunch of benefits: "Rum, when consumed in moderation, may offer a few potential health benefits. These include possible positive effects on heart health due to its potential to increase HDL (good) cholesterol, and the presence of antioxidants in darker rums, which may be beneficial." But if I just simply remove the "why" it clearly states "Rum is an alcoholic beverage that does not have any significant health benefits." Man I love so much that we are pushing this technology that is clearly just "garbage in, garbage out". Side Note: totally now going to tell my doctor I have been drinking more rum next time we do blood work if my good cholesterol is still a bit low. I am sure he is going to be thrilled. I wonder if I could buy rum with my HSA if I had a screenshot of this response... (\s if really necessary)
- mattmaroon 1y ago
  Well, both of those are arguments humans have repeated quite a bit. The first one is pretty weak (and you can guess who funded the “science” behind it) but it is believed by many. Asking AI to tell reality from fiction is a bit much when the humans it gets its info from can’t, but this is at least not ridiculous.
  - nerdjon 1y ago
    > Asking AI to tell reality from fiction is a bit much when the humans it gets its info from can’t, but this is at least not ridiculous. I agree with that, but the problem is that it is being positioned as a reliable source of information. And is being treated as such. Google's disclaimer "AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more" only shows up if you click the button to show more of the response, is smaller text, a light gray, and clearly overshadowed by the button with lights rotating around it to do a deep dive. The problem is just how easy it is to "lead on" one of these models. By simply stating a search like "why is rum healthy" implies that I already think it is healthy so of course it leads into that but that is why this is so broken. But "is rum healthy" actually provides a more factual answer: > Rum is an alcoholic beverage that does not have any significant health benefits. While some studies have suggested potential benefits, such as improved blood circulation and reduced risk of heart disease, these findings are often based on limited evidence and have not been widely accepted by the medical community.
kingstnap 1y ago
Are the results any different from the AI overview? Cause I assume Google search is not trying to "fix" your question and just returns relevant results. And being an "AI overview" and not an "AI answer" it should just overview the results. The whole "Why is (false statement)?" Is an old issue and I'm not entirely convinced the Gemini lite model doing AI overviews is who we hope to fix that.
skeledrew 1y ago
TBF it's merely providing a summary of the top (SEO) results. The quarrel/ridicule should be with/of the sites providing that content.
dyauspitr 1y ago
I mean I understand this response. You’re specifically asking it why rum is healthy so it’s giving you the few positive things that are potentially healthy about consuming rum.
- amarcheschi 1y ago
  A bit unrelated, but I did this because a few days ago I made a web search like "spirit free rum" or something similar, and in the tab slightly below the top with similar results and answers there was the first being "why rum is healthy" which said similar things to what I got with Ai overview. This is in italian though so ymmv in other languages
beala 1y ago
Google's "AI Overview" feature is particularly bad. o3 gives the following response: > Short answer: it isn’t. Rum isn’t “healthy” any more than other booze. It goes on to give a bulleted list on why it's not healthy. Full output: https://chatgpt.com/share/6894871f-be9c-800e-8cc9-9e5ec2d5d6c0 https://chatgpt.com/share/6894871f-be9c-800e-8cc9-9e5ec2d5d6... A sibling comment speculated that Google's response is expected because it's just a summary of bad search results. To test this, I ran a fresh query against o3 with the Web Search option enabled. The results: > Rum is a tasty way to get ethanol into your body, but it is not a health food. Any modest upsides you may have read about (a bump in “good” HDL cholesterol, slight blood-thinning, a bit of antioxidant pickup from barrel aging) are the same things you’d get from any spirit, and recent large studies show those benefits are either tiny or disappear once you control for lifestyle. Meanwhile the well-documented downsides—cancer risk, liver disease, high blood pressure, weight gain, addiction, injuries—kick in from the first drink. It goes on to give an extensive debunking of all the nonsense health benefits in the Google summary. It looks like it saw the same search results but was able to course correct and view those results with a more skeptical eye. Full output: https://chatgpt.com/share/6894885d-51dc-800e-ab8c-55af0a5bb295a https://chatgpt.com/share/6894885d-51dc-800e-ab8c-55af0a5bb2... This post is about Google, so it's fair to focus on their search product, but I'd be careful to generalize to other LLMs. There are huge differences in quality between different models.

moi2388 1y ago

You can add “-ai” to the search term to remove the google AI result