[gtowey]

I was just thinking exactly the same. Basic web search has become so horrible that AI is being used as its replacement.

I found it a sad condemnation of how far the tech industry has fallen into enshittification and is failing to provide tools that are actually useful.

[gh0stcat]

We always had the technology to do things better, it's the money making part that has made things worse technologically speaking. In this same way, I don't see how AI will resolve the problem - our productivity was never the goal, and that won't change any time soon.

[littlecranky67]

> Basic web search has become so horrible

It is not horrible, it reached the point of absolute excellence. Not for you, the user - but for making money for the creator. Remember, no one paid for web search, so you are the product. If you are the provider of the web search engine, the point of having web search is not deliver the best search result to the user, but maximize the amount of money you can make from the sum of the world population. And google did very good in maximizing their profits, without users turning away from them.

[johnnyanmac]

And it'll happen again when AI models start resorting to ads once again.

[emptybits]

Yup. Any LLM recommendation for a product or service should be viewed with suspicion (no different than web search results or asking a commission-based human their opinion). Sponsored placements. Affiliate links. Etc.

Or when asking an LLM for a comparison matrix or pros and cons between choices ... beware paid placements or sponsors. Bias could be a result of available training data (forgivable?) or due to paid prioritization (or de-prioritizing of competitors!)

[littlecranky67]

I don't think that will ever happen. All you need is a trivial browser extension with a locally run, very primite LLM, that takes the output of the commercial LLM, and removes all advertisement. And adBlocker AI, so to speak.

Yes, there will be people not using adblockers just as there are people today. But no adblocker ever was able to remove SEO spam from googles website, all they did was hiding obvious adds. They didn't improve the search experience.

[Wobbles42]

Their tools are very useful. To their customers. Not to their users.