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CaryJM

@rodhilton Not that this contradicts the main point (that Google Search is over, which I agree with) but this same query in Google for me provides the correct result. Incredibly low bar but it does come back correct.

19 comments
Rod Hilton

@Caryjm the fact that Google was doing this went viral on a lot of socials and I believe there was a frontpage HN post about it as well, so Google has patched the query to fix this. It's working for me now as well.

CaryJM

@rodhilton that was what I was assuming as well - so egregious and with enough visibility that a manual fix was required. 100% agree with your thesis - if you’re looking for a fact which is known, Google no longer useful as a way to get it

kaup

@Caryjm @rodhilton I just did it, and exactly wrong. Not patched.

MarkusL

@kaup

Same here. Still not patched as of 2004 UTC.

@Caryjm @rodhilton

Jen C, MPH :verified:

@markusl @kaup @Caryjm @rodhilton I just tried it too, still not patched 7:49 pm Eastern. I also provided feedback asking them not to provide chatgpt responses as top hits.

skelric

@Caryjm @rodhilton
Looks like AI was the weak link in the chain.

DELETED

@rodhilton @Caryjm

I checked just now and it is still showing the wrong information.

fedithom

@therionofthebeast @rodhilton @Caryjm

Crap. #Startpage doesn't filter that crap out (probably no way to), so it shows the same bullshit results. Time to switch search engines.

ClickyMcTicker

@rodhilton @Caryjm It still produces the incorrect result as of this post. The suggested search query omits “the letter” from the query (see my other comment) which produces a correct result.

RAK

@ClickyMcTicker @rodhilton @Caryjm: Unfortunately, I appear, even without "the letter", to get the incorrect result.

Bornach

@rodhilton @Caryjm
Asking Google Home mini still fails for me

Mark

@rodhilton @Caryjm still the same now from Germany on google.de
Also "fixing" one exact search case will probably not help the issue at cause.

alex.tm

@rodhilton @Caryjm FYI, I just tried it 18 hours after your comment and still got the “Kenya doesn’t start with K” response from Google.

Crows Labyrinth

@Caryjm

Not for me. I get the wrong answer from Google.

@rodhilton

le Pétomane Ancien

@Caryjm @rodhilton I couldn't believe that this was anything but an urban legend so I queried Google. Sure enough, it give me the bogus chatGPT answer.

#DuckDuckGo gave me a reasonable and accurate list of websites with the right answer.

Google, you are dead to me.

ClickyMcTicker

@Caryjm @rodhilton Did you type “country in Africa that starts with the letter k” or “country in Africa that starts with k”? The former produces the result seen above, and the latter produces the result you received (albeit that same result is the second on the list behind the correct answer)

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