Well, yes, Google has been becoming shittier for years as they prioritize ads and fail to deal with SEO slop. You have to know what’s a good source, but that was true even when we were doing research in libraries.
The AI summary is making the problem worse. The information it provides is not trustworthy. It also deprives site owners from traffic. It’s really bad on like every metric.
Well, in this example, the information provided by the AI was simply wrong. If it had done the traditional search method of pointing to the organization’s website where they had the hours listed, it would have worked fine.
This idea that “we’re all entitled to our opinion” is nonsense. That’s for when you’re a child and the topic is what flavor Jelly Bean you like. It’s not for like policy or things that matter. You can’t just “it’s my opinion” your way through “this algorithm is O(n^2) but I like it better than O(n) so I’m going to use it for my big website”. Or more on topic, you can’t use it for “these results are wrong but I like them better”
A world there python ran in the browser instead of javacript would probably be a whole lot better.
I love this idea. Do you mind if I promote it with some queer folks I know?
Myself I’m pretty straight and don’t have a website, but maybe one day.
If a feature is useful people will use it, be it AI or not AI.
People will also use it if it’s not useful, if it’s the default.
A friend of mine did a search the other day to find the hour of something, and google’s AI lied to her. Top of the page, just completely wrong.
Luckily I said, “That doesn’t sound right” and checked the official site, where we found the truth.
Google is definitely forcing this out, even when it’s inferior to other products. Hell, it’s inferior to their own, existing product.
But people will keep using AI, because it’s there, and it’s right most of the time.
Google sucks. They should be broken up, and their leadership barred from working in tech. We could have had a better future. Instead we have this hallucinatory hellhole.
Possessive is normally done with an apostrophe. The dog’s toy. The apartment’s lobby.
But when possessive goes on the pronoun “it”? No apostrophe.
Look out for the monster. Its fangs are sharp.
If you put an apostrophe, that’s for “it is”.
This bothers me slightly. There’s history illinonating why it happened, but I don’t like it.
Larger orgs probably have their own website, and could put it there and/or make an RSS feed. That’s old tech, and probably not as popular because it can’t be monetized like twitter/facebook/etc.
There’s also email, which is typically free. It’s less fancy, but it’s also very open. You don’t get good discoverability, though. Some bands I like send out newsletters and that’s how I keep up with them.
Lastly, the fediverse exists. It has some of the problems of social media, but at least it’s not owned by a handful of rich assholes.
I don’t use reddit aside from reading search results. I never post and never explicitly seek it out.
I deleted Twitter years ago. I never used Facebook or Instagram or tiktok. That shit’s bad for you.
It’s annoying that some places will make announcements only on shitty platforms. None of my friends are this “hardcore” , so sometimes I find out about stuff like a concert or protest or whatever because one of them sees it on Instagram
CrossCode has such charm. The puzzles are good, but I find myself tired after playing it in a way other games don’t give me. I should finish it.
Shadowrun for Genesis was amazing! Ahead of its time. The way it semi randomly generated jobs for you to do was pretty unique. Like Bethesda radiant quests, but decades earlier and better. I really enjoyed rising up from the weakest street runner to someone with enough reputation to skip the line at the expensive club.
The leveling system was also pretty advanced for Genesis.
Also the cyberspace hacking was wacky and fun.
That’s a big part of it. There’s also a lot of ignorance and stupidity.
They’ll be like “I don’t want government in health care” but also want Medicare and Medicaid.
I haven’t thought through all the scenarios and edge cases, but generally spying on the public seems dicey and ripe for abuse. Especially if it’s just like “the public, all the time, whenever we feel like it,” instead of “ok we got a warrant signed by a judge to investigate Joe Bombguy”.
I don’t think the current government is capable or interested in making sound decisions. I don’t think the public is capable of electing a better government. For profit orgs don’t have the public’s best interest as a priority. So this is bad
will humanity ever learn to stop acting like dumb angry monkeys?
Seems unlikely.
As to your broader point about the tools themselves not being bad, the root problem remains capitalism, or “a few people have unaccountable power over many”
People should keep right except to pass, typically.
Over short distances, the difference between going 40 and 30 or even 20 are miniscule. I’ve still had people lose their shit when I wouldn’t blaze through a school zone. Just chill out bro, the fast food will be there all day.
But I live somewhere I don’t need to drive anymore, and I’m happy with it.
I feel like the current AI stuff has been net negative. It prompted layoffs and hiring freezes, but then didn’t produce quality results.
I haven’t! Seems similar to Falling Down
A friend and I were talking about what’s wrong with the world, and one of the things we discussed was there aren’t any consequences for minor infractions. We’re all too polite. Someone does something shitty, like this person in their car, or someone taking up 4 seats on the bus, or throwing their trash on the street, and no one does anything. No one wants to start a fight or make a scene.
Many people operate at a very basic level of moral reasoning: avoid punishment. Some people, some of the time, achieve higher levels of reasoning like “I should follow the rules” or even “I should do what’s good for society.” But many people chill out at the toddler level of “I don’t want to be punished.” So it follows that when these oversized toddlers never get punished, they think they’re doing just fine.
But concurrently, the institution we have to enforce laws and norms, the police, sucks dog shit. Racist, corrupt, no accountability, and lazy. If I see a guy littering, I’m not going to call the cops. They wouldn’t even come, for one thing, but I also don’t want to bring a bunch of armed assholes into the scene.
I don’t know what the best way forward is. My friend suggested local “guardian angel” volunteers that patrol and “Deal with” people who are shitty, but that feels like it could just turn into the police-but-worse. But I really want people who shit up the world to stop, and it feels like they don’t have enough empathy to understand anything more complex than “you took up four seats on the bus and were blasting youtube out of your phone, so we threw you out. Enjoy walking home, asshole.”
Ownership will abuse labor as much as it can. Sometimes to make more profit. Sometimes for murkier reasons. I think some management are just stupid and they’d hurt the company to follow their unfounded feelings.
Labor should organize.
I don’t think it saves time on net if you have to read it and then go verify it anyway. Might as well go directly to the more trustworthy source in the first place! And if you don’t care if your answer is correct, why even search? Just make something up.