Tell that to the companies slowly replacing conventional search with AI.
AI search is a game-changer for those companies. It keeps you on their site instead of clicking away. So they retain your attention, and needn’t share any of the economic benefit with the sources that make it possible.
And when we criticize the quality of the results, who’s gonna hold them accountable for nonsense? “It’s just a tool, after all”, they say, Caveat emptor!”
Nevermind that they have a financial incentive to yield results that avoid disrespecting your biases, and offer no more than a homeopathic dose of utility — to keep you searching but never finding.
It’s a sprawling problem, that stems from the lack of protections around monopoly power, the attention economy, cribbing off other people’s work, and misinformation.
Your comment is technically correct. “You’re using the wrong tool” is a valid footnote. But it’s not the crux of the issue.
Tell that to the companies slowly replacing conventional search with AI.
AI search is a game-changer for those companies. It keeps you on their site instead of clicking away. So they retain your attention, and needn’t share any of the economic benefit with the sources that make it possible.
And when we criticize the quality of the results, who’s gonna hold them accountable for nonsense? “It’s just a tool, after all”, they say, Caveat emptor!”
Nevermind that they have a financial incentive to yield results that avoid disrespecting your biases, and offer no more than a homeopathic dose of utility — to keep you searching but never finding.
It’s a sprawling problem, that stems from the lack of protections around monopoly power, the attention economy, cribbing off other people’s work, and misinformation.
Your comment is technically correct. “You’re using the wrong tool” is a valid footnote. But it’s not the crux of the issue.