@rodhilton it's true. I generally avoid Google but, when forced to use the search, I can never get anything but shopping suggestions unless I include "Wiki" in the search.

@rodhilton RIP Google.

@rodhilton over? sure. but will it persist for decades based on pure human laziness? absolutely.

@rodhilton
Somewhere, someone is giggling uncontrollably because they can't believe their plan worked.

@rodhilton I wonder why mine is different.

Any chance they updated it already?

Edit: of course I posted this before reading the replies...

@rodhilton honestly ChatGPT seems pretty confused about this one

@rodhilton
@grvsmth
Google's bet that it would have the comparative advantage to filter LLM spam seems to have backfired by its simultaneous attempt to integrate LLMs into search.

@rodhilton looks different for me

@rodhilton

Oh. My. God.

@rodhilton @aidan Bing handles it so well as well, not terribly *at all* 😞🙃

@rodhilton Honestly, I switched to DuckDuckGo the moment I heard about it and haven't looked back.

@rodhilton omg

@rodhilton it's always interesting to learn new trivia facts like this. I estimate I am the 93d person to reply with this joke. Omg no. What is wrong with you all

@rodhilton Aw fuck. Hey, what's #dmoz doing these days?

EDIT: Answered my own question, apparently the Open Directory Project replaced it!

http://www.odp.org/homepage.php

@rodhilton I quit that search site years ago. Duck duck go is my search engine on all my device s.

@rodhilton Google search was so slow I switched to Duck Duck Go.

@rodhilton There are NO COUNTRIES in Africa that begin with the letter S (-10)

@rodhilton
I sent them a report, hope it helps

@rodhilton I checked to see if my google home will read that for a laugh. NOPE. just refuses to answer and asks if I wanted to know 'W' African countries

@rodhilton Great, so now the web is filling up with shit.

@rodhilton I don't seem to get that result

@rodhilton thanks for the info, haven't used google in a while

@rodhilton I use #duckduckgo for my searches but because of the personalised results by google it is good for local searches such as restaurants, ATM's etc.

@rodhilton

far out, people

it's a "featured snippet": a result from a 3rd party.
not google, or their own AI, which appears - in the same search - to be well aware that Kenya starts with a K.
a grab conveniently omitted by the OP

@rodhilton Google, the most used search engine, is not finding accurate information.
yep, it's over, we're done for.

@rodhilton wow, still not patched here.

Search really is broken. #gpt #doomed

@rodhilton

Incredible.

@rodhilton

It's almost like people keep going to google, searching for "country in Africa that starts with the letter K" and then clicking on the absurd result to see the absurd quote for themselves.

Sounds like google is working as expected.

@rodhilton still getting the wrong answer at 11:40 PM eastern time

@rodhilton That's the problem with AI... it's not capable of distinguishing false information... whether a joke, sarcasm or lies.

@rodhilton Maybe they fixed it. I got the correct answer coming in from #Firefox private mode, no VPN, from #Madison, WI.

@rodhilton So sad. ChatGPT is a plague released on the internet.

@rodhilton

This is why, when I win the lottery, I'm going to put tens of millions toward a funding a crack team that can build search as a noncommercial, digital public commons. The incentives of commercial search products, especially surveillance advertising-based ones, are misaligned with the needs of the global online public. If Wikipedia and the Fediverse can work, so can this.

@rodhilton #realityisajoke

@rodhilton #GoogleSearchIsOver not with a bang but a whimper

@rodhilton that next sentence - "the closest is Kenya, which starts with a 'K' sound, but is actually spelled with a 'K' sound" - is the part that's really doibg my head in.

@rodhilton For me it's second result, which is... not great. Honestly which is higher might depend on which is paying google more for our regions.

@rodhilton I'm curious to see how many more google search results we can turn in to deez nuts jokes.

For science, obviously.

@rodhilton Great example of why AI is an anti-imperialist, civil liberty, feminist and queer issue as well. ChatGPT has no moral standings, it has prompt-injections before user-input. Chaotic neutral will amplify social injustices.

This might be the longest thread I've yet seen on Mastodon... Let's see how this goes.

@ThreadTree unroll

@rodhilton it is not over, and it has been like that for several years now.

https://social.linux.pizza/@unexpectedteapot/110885232428001799

@rodhilton

Incorrect.

https://bears.town/@AzureCerulean/110890707296437176

@rodhilton Interesting, if I am not logged in I get the result you did (I was in incognito mode) but if I search when logged into my account the correct result comes up.

@rodhilton
Funny thing: I am using Kagi search, and while it hits first the same crap, the summarized answer is actually correct.
A case of being right for the wrong reasons ? 😅

@rodhilton
https://youtu.be/jrFv1O4dbqY

@rodhilton Ironic! the datasets to train the models were labelled in Kenya https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/openai-and-sama-hired-underpaid-workers-in-kenia-to-filter-toxic-content-for-chatgpt/

@rodhilton This ought to be enough for the whole AI craze to be called off, right?

@rodhilton Well, in German it works today.

@rodhilton @dada87 OMG this is real.

@rodhilton bing has the same problem

@rodhilton Honestly, I'm willing to just let Google become just fully comedic and leave serious searches to better browsers

@rodhilton ChatGPT is pure word processing. It does nothing deductive.

It is stupid as hell.

@rodhilton That is a major error.
I haven't used Google for some years now but this one I had to look up and I got the same misleading answer.
Shame on Google and their AI.

@rodhilton
Are you sure? I tried this and it's pretty normal for me... Is this a USA thing?

@rodhilton I've noticed the past few months of how bad Google search has gone, and that's from a minimal technical background. Searches have been largely repetitive and irrelevant to what you're searching for. How can we have artificial intelligence when there isn't a great deal in society these days?

@rodhilton I had to fact check this, but it’s still true as of now…

@rodhilton Has Elon Musk bought Google Search as well?

@rodhilton bard seems OK

@rodhilton I tested with Brave search which also displays an AI summariser result at the top. It starts with incorrect information and then goes on a series of contradictions and irrelevancy. At least it mentions Kenya, though. 😆

@rodhilton feels like the only change to monetized google is added attitude

@rodhilton just tried this on my phone and the result is still wrong, fortunately I use duck duck go

@rodhilton It's a pretty crappy joke in the first place.

@rodhilton The level of Google enshittification these days is just mind-blowing. I really need to stop using it.

@rodhilton #ArtificialStupidity spreads…

@rodhilton
I think there is a problem, but in this case not so much Google search imo.
It shows several sites that the algorithm sees as relevant. It's not directly serving us an answer generated by AI.It's still up to us to discern the right one.
Automated search will never be trivial.

Google serving rubbish as it's first result will always be possible. It's the neverending battle between search engines and the ones trying to game the system.

@rodhilton 🤣 this is absolutely ridiculous. I think we've reached an inflection point wrt Google's search results quality. For heaven's sake even Bing is more reliable!

@rodhilton@mastodon.social

> Google Search is over.

@rodhilton “AI” is just a bad joke, and is constructed to be used by losers and morons.

@rodhilton the most hilarious part is that Kenya starts with a K sound but it's actually spelled with a K sounds

@rodhilton it gave me an equally confusing answer on Chrome for mobile

@rodhilton Logged-in to G I get a real, useful answer. Incognito mode, it def is busted

@rodhilton "But is actually spelled with a "K" sound". I thought we used letters to spell rather then sounds. oh well my bad.

@rodhilton Unrestrained use of ChatGPT is already ruining the quality of the internet, it probably won't take too long until there's a flood of AI generated shit articles and misinformation covering up real content

@rodhilton maybe logic there is that Kenya is actually «Republic of Kenya» (or «Jamhuri ya Kenya»)