Google's AI Overview Consoles a User Over a Basketball Meme
When did Google get so weird?
A simple Google search for a mid-2010s Philadelphia 76ers meme about Dario Saric never coming to the US triggered an AI Overview that assumed the user had been romantically spurned and offered emotional support. The author argues this is a bizarre departure from Google's core mission of organizing information, and that the actual search results were buried beneath the AI's unsolicited empathy.
In what universe is it Google's job to console me and be an empathetic listener rather than just find what I am looking for on the internet?
- Hugsbox
Yesterday I tried to google "can the Halifax Wanderers still make the CPL playoffs?"
So obviously what appears right at the top is the AI summary, which told me "they've already secured their #4 position and made the playoffs". I knew this wasn't true, and I guess I could have just scrolled down a bit further and found my answer but now I was curious.
So I said "that's not true, they're still #5, what I want to know is _could they still make the playoffs_"
It says they've got an upcoming game against Ottawa, and if they win their chances are good. That game has already taken place, so I correct it again and finally I get a reasonable answer.
My question is: what's the point of the AI in the search engine if it itself isn't going to use the search engine first before answering? Like, I can't wrap my head around that. The answer is on the same page as its hallucination. It could have done a cursory look around before first hallucinating something completely false, and when corrected the first time giving me outdated information. It's meant to be A SEARCH ENGINE!
- nutrientharvest
Like it or not, this is exactly what normies have always wanted out of search engines - a little guy in their computer they can talk to for answers, advice and reassurance. They've always been trying to use Google Search this way and have been confused and annoyed that it doesn't work. And now it does! It's a massive quality of life improvement for the average user and a huge product win for Google.
- BatchJob
This isnt wierd. Its disturbing. I believe that the tech industry is geniunely trying to scare and disorient the public into thinking they are the only thing standing between them and some evil AI overlord which is obviously just the tech industry itself and a pile of poor trained LLMs.
I believe this "fear" factor they are driving they believe will increase their credibility when they call LLMs AI and is a con towards convincing everyone they have reached AGI. Its definitely marketing preparation so that when they do claim AGI we will believe it without question. (or else!)
If these folks didnt have so much money it would be something to laught at, but its now becoming geniunely disturbing and Im starting to think that the folks running these shops are probably flirting with or experiencing extended mental illness.
I would feel sorry for them if I cared. I dont care. The tech industry is a joke and we are all going to be ashamed to be a part of it by the time this is over. Shut it down.
- edent
Most people in the world are profoundly lonely. They'll take whatever parasocial relationships they can get - reaction videos, podcasts of people chatting, Eliza simulating concern.
Google wants to relentlessly monetise your sadness.
The only way out is to try and make connections with real people.
Case in point, why didn't you text your friends to ask them if they remembered those old memes? Why was your first thought to ask a computer rather than a person?
It's like when you're in the pub and and someone asks "who was that guy who was in the movie where…?" you can either chat with your friends and have a good time or be a buzzkill who opens up IMDB and says "Humphrey Bogart".
- robin_reala
I don’t understand how we’re 60 comments in and yet no-one has suggested that the problem is that you’re continuing to use Google despite it changing its core offering out from underneath your feet. If you want search (which isn’t an unreasonable desire) then Google isn’t the place for you any more.
- Liftyee
It still makes me feel odd when ChatGPT says something like "I feel the same way", "I love xyz", "I think ...", exactly because it can't really feel anything. It defends this behaviour as an abstraction to make the conversation more natural, but that makes it easy to forget that there is no feeling or opinion - only the inputs/outputs resembling one.
- hbn
A while back I got a strange text message from an unknown number that seemed to be inviting me over for a barbecue
I copy pasted the text into Google to see if it was a common known spam text where they reveal themself to be a hot young Asian woman looking for love (and money)
Instead, Google happily accepted my invitation to the barbecue
- bsoqk
God, grant me the serenity to read the AI summary when it contains true information, the courage to ignore it when it contains falsehoods, and the wisdom to know the difference.
- varun_ch
The part I hate the most is they got rid of the dictionary/thesaurus/etymology thing and replaced it with AI overview. Now "define <word>" or "<word> synonyms" gives you an AI overview with consistently worse output than the nice, consistent and deterministic dictionary output.
- hintymad
> Google, a search engine which does not have human emotions, assumed that I had been spurned by a man in my life named Dario and decided what I wanted was an empathetic digital friend.
I'm not sure why this is a surprise. Google most likely uses an efficient yet limited language model to give us search answers. When a search query does not have strong or specific enough context, the model will sample and find what most of the training material will cover. That is, the most likely average behavior covered in the training data. In this case, "hes never coming over dario" is such a generic sentence, so unless Google happens to have indexed what the author mentioned and ranked it high, the answer would appear natural to the AI. Or using the AI jargon, the answer appears to be properly aligned.