4 ms·

you know, there is a third group - a large number of users which find the AI overview useful

touwer 10mo ago
Very large even. Especially considering the explosion of ai-crap in the search results
irl_zebra 10mo ago
Yeah hate to say it, because I am an AI hater, but I love the AI results in Google and Kagi. I barely click results anymore for basic questions unless it's something important enough for me to need verification to ensure the AI-gen answer wasn't a hallucination. It's been so nice not having to pick through the cesspool that is StackOverflow to find answers to quick cli questions, or wade through SEO-generated, Amazon-affiliate link garbage for more general questions.
- spwa4 10mo ago
  This is what the vast majority of users will do of course. The issue people have with it is that it breaks the "social contract" of the web, which is that part of the advertising income goes to the site that provided the information the answer is based on. That, by destroying that income, "overviews" (now including AI overviews, but that's not where it started) are destroying first publishers and I'm sure it'll go all the way through until Youtube is entirely destroyed as well. Of course, it does not destroy Google's income ... and it destroys the promise Google made long ago, which is to never keep users on Google platforms. Oh and to add insult to injury, want to bet Opal will force app developers into what you probably never even imaged would happen on the web? Pay-per-view. Not for a video. For a website/app.
input_sh 10mo ago
> the vast majority of users won't have an opinion They're here, they don't care how they get from point A to point B, the tech used to achieve that result is completely irrelevant to them. AI? Great. Not AI such as the Instant Answers era? Also great. Average Joe does not spend his time thinking about the economics of the web. But you shouldn't confuse them finding "AI" useful now with them being attached to it long term. It's a hip new tool now, but the novelty will fade and Google will have to re-invent themselves all over again. If anything, they kinda screwed themselves over by calling this "AI". AI is supposed to be something within reach, but always some years away. By wasting that term for the current era, it's gonna suck so hard to think of a new marketing term that's gonna be seen as an improvement in comparison to the term "AI".
benterix 10mo ago
Which is saddening as the first thing I think when I see this overview is "How do I verify this statement is correct" and paradoxically it sometimes just slows me down.
bossyTeacher 10mo ago
HN's hate for LLM based AI blinds it to this uncomfortable possibility

touwer 10mo ago

Very large even. Especially considering the explosion of ai-crap in the search results

Yeah hate to say it, because I am an AI hater, but I love the AI results in Google and Kagi. I barely click results anymore for basic questions unless it's something important enough for me to need verification to ensure the AI-gen answer wasn't a hallucination. It's been so nice not having to pick through the cesspool that is StackOverflow to find answers to quick cli questions, or wade through SEO-generated, Amazon-affiliate link garbage for more general questions.

spwa4 10mo ago
This is what the vast majority of users will do of course. The issue people have with it is that it breaks the "social contract" of the web, which is that part of the advertising income goes to the site that provided the information the answer is based on. That, by destroying that income, "overviews" (now including AI overviews, but that's not where it started) are destroying first publishers and I'm sure it'll go all the way through until Youtube is entirely destroyed as well. Of course, it does not destroy Google's income ... and it destroys the promise Google made long ago, which is to never keep users on Google platforms. Oh and to add insult to injury, want to bet Opal will force app developers into what you probably never even imaged would happen on the web? Pay-per-view. Not for a video. For a website/app.

input_sh 10mo ago

> the vast majority of users won't have an opinion They're here, they don't care how they get from point A to point B, the tech used to achieve that result is completely irrelevant to them. AI? Great. Not AI such as the Instant Answers era? Also great. Average Joe does not spend his time thinking about the economics of the web. But you shouldn't confuse them finding "AI" useful now with them being attached to it long term. It's a hip new tool now, but the novelty will fade and Google will have to re-invent themselves all over again. If anything, they kinda screwed themselves over by calling this "AI". AI is supposed to be something within reach, but always some years away. By wasting that term for the current era, it's gonna suck so hard to think of a new marketing term that's gonna be seen as an improvement in comparison to the term "AI".

benterix 10mo ago

Which is saddening as the first thing I think when I see this overview is "How do I verify this statement is correct" and paradoxically it sometimes just slows me down.

bossyTeacher 10mo ago

HN's hate for LLM based AI blinds it to this uncomfortable possibility