Google search is over

Via @rodhilton

Right now if you search for “country in Africa that starts with the letter K”:

  • DuckDuckGo will link to an alphabetical list of countries in Africa which includes Kenya.
  • Google, as the first hit, links to a ChatGPT transcript where it claims that there are none, and summarizes to say the same.

This is because ChatGPT at some point ingested this popular joke:

“There are no countries in Africa that start with K.” “What about Kenya?” “Kenya suck deez nuts?”

Google Search is over.

@ country in africa that starts with the letter k Q Q Al (D Images [ Videos News @ Maps (® Shopping 95 Settings Allregions v Safe search: moderate v Anytime v Co. https://www.thoughtco.com > alphabetical-list-of-all-african-countries-43750 Alphabetical List of All African Countries - ThoughtCo Sep 22,2022 - Updated on September 22, 2022 Below is an alphabetical list of all African countries, along with capitals and the state names as they are known within each country o in local official languages. A Brief History of Taiwan African Union Entering the Modern Era . After the The African Union is one of the world's Manchus overthrew the Ming Dynasty... most important intergovernmental.. Key Events A Brief History of Cameroon South Africa's Extension of University The Republic of Cameroon is an Education Act of 1959. The Jameson... independent country in Central and... Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact was a mutual defense treaty between the Soviet Union (USS...
Weirdmusic,
@Weirdmusic@lemmy.world avatar

It’s not doing it anymore

The_Jit,

Odd. I just did it and it worked for me.

mmatessa,
@mmatessa@kbin.social avatar

Just now: "There are no countries in Africa that start with the letter "K".
The closest is Kenya, which starts with a "K" sound."

avidamoeba,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

Just tried, it’s definitely doing it for me.

eager_eagle,
@eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

when will people learn that search results change all the time and are different for different people

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c44bc71a-249f-4138-9ef3-0db99e72877e.png

Sami,
@Sami@lemmy.zip avatar

I get the same as the main post. Either way the point still stands. I had someone correct me with a misconception about something because he googled it and thats what it said in the answer box. It’s getting increasingly difficult to rely on search results especially when google synthesizes them into questions and answers with little context

cybervseas,

Yes. I have to keep reminding my parents that those little Google answer boxes aren’t real search results and can’t be trusted. They sometimes say the exact opposite of the page they’re citing!

QIZED,

Either way the point still stands.

What point?

I had someone correct me with a misconception about something because he googled it and thats what it said in the answer box

Oh, honey. You must be new here. Googling something, taking the first answer that fits your needs, doing zero follow up, and posting it confidently is nothing new. That has been happening for the last few decades.

It’s getting increasingly difficult to rely on search results especially when google synthesizes them into questions and answers with little context

In what way? Like always, I have had to do a little critical thinking to gain anything out of my google searches. But now, sometimes the answer is right there. In what world is that a bad thing?

But you might just say “hurry durr it give me answer, therefore correct”. Again, yes, that has always been the case. People will use any tools available to them to support their point. If a new tool has less than a 100% success rate, I don’t see that as a problem.

Womble,

The point is that google is no longer just listing search results. For years now it has been giving the “correct” answer as well as results. This started of with things it could recognise and easily solve like calculations (“what is 432 times 548”), but has now moved into general queries powered by LLMs that have no knowledge of fact.

QIZED,

Okay? As I said, google has been giving incorrect results for decades. Now, just like before, it gives incorrect answers sometimes. But it has gotten a LOT better at giving those correct answers.

SIGSEGV, (edited )

You are arguing in bad faith. It is a fact that Google results have been getting worse over time. What is your point? That with extra effort, you might get the answer you’re looking for? Google used to be the king of search! Other search engines don’t seem to have a problem answering the question is the point others are trying to make, despite Google’s massive revenue.

QIZED,

It is a fact that Google results have been getting worse over time.

Care to back up that unfounded claim?

Other search engines don’t seem to have a problem answering the question

Two for one! Mind giving me some supporting evidence? Nothing anecdotal, mind you. Show me that “other search engines” answer questions better than google, statistically.

SIGSEGV, (edited )

I can back up that claim by pointing to the popularity of other search engines. People are now even paying to search because Google has become a nightmare due to SEO.

As to your other question: did you even read the other comments on this thread before you jumped to Google’s defense?

I used to totally be a Google fanboy, like you still are, but they’re failing us, dude, and somewhere deep down, I think you realize that.

QIZED,

I can back up that claim by pointing to the popularity of other search engines

I would love to see that research paper. Just to be clear: you are claiming that google is… Not the most popular search engine? Or that it is losing popularity?

You still haven’t answered my questions, though.

mayo,

Why don’t you show us some proof that google search is unchanged compared to what it was 10 years go.

QIZED,

When did I make that claim?

QIZED,

As to my point, it is that google searches have not failed me to date, AI has only improved it, and saying “but it gave me something wrong once!” is basically that “old man yells at clouds” meme.

Neato,
@Neato@kbin.social avatar

It doesn't matter? If you search for something and you get a blatantly wrong answer parroted from an AI text completion service, it's still a fail.

I got the wrong answer from Google just now and I've never heard of that joke before. So clearly it isn't just OP with polluted metrics.

OldFartPhil, (edited )

I get the result you got, but the Emergent Mind response is the second organic result. That’s still way too high.

Notorious_handholder,

Take out “the letter” part and search as just: “countries in africa that start with k”. For some reason it seems the search involving the words “the letter” got fixed but others did not. Confirmed I was able to get both results by doing that and as of this typing I still able to switch between the two results by just adding or removing those words

deleted,

Interestingly enough, when I removed the word “letter” I got none. If I put it back I get Kenya.

This was done on the same device and same browser session.

antonim,

What’s your point here? Is googling supposed to be a lottery of good and shit results?

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/c945fed4-b730-4761-82f5-c77bb8a8b5db.png

Landrin201,
@Landrin201@lemmy.ml avatar

I just tried it and got this result. The sentence is incredible, I can’t get over how painfully stupid it is.

Apparently Kenya starts with a k sound and a letter that resembles k but not the letter k

sexy_peach,
@sexy_peach@feddit.de avatar

So what? They’re usually correct is the point.

avidamoeba,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

While true, I also got the same result as OP.

FinallyDebunked,
@FinallyDebunked@slrpnk.net avatar

Kiribati Kirghizia Kenya

also Kroatia Kuba Kyprus Kanada Kosta Rica Karelia

PixxlMan,

Yeah, drawing conclusions from a single bad search result is stupid.

Landrin201,
@Landrin201@lemmy.ml avatar

I did it just now and got this:

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/6a7303e0-6244-414c-b114-5b80213bec0d.jpeg

NeoNachtwaechter,

I could reproduce it exactly as described.

cristorf,

Showed up for me on google.ca lol. Glad I switched to duck duck go a whole a go.

notfromhere,

Same with brave search. Da fuq is going on anymore.

Neato,
@Neato@kbin.social avatar

Bing gives me the right answer: that list of countries.

What an amazing time we live in. Where Bing is better than Google. Though Bing does have AI, I think you have to scroll up (past the top) or directly search with it so far.

Kbin_space_program,

Bing chat originally screwed it up but it figured it out the 2nd time I asked in a new window.

Mojojojo1993,

Works fine for me

Kenya. Kenya is a country located in East Africa. It shares borders with Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Synthead,

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/93d3d1c8-94c3-42f2-8368-2af4b2753753.png

Roundcat,
@Roundcat@kbin.social avatar

Maybe it's because I have ad blockers on, and try to avoid AI like the plague, but my google searches are giving me actual results rather than what you're describing.

Then again, I know google gives different results based on the user.

JoBo,

It’s not my search. There’s a link. It says what the search engines are.

Kuvwert,

https://i.imgur.com/m0B66L0.jpeg

adeoxymus,

Tbh the problem is not due to chat gpt but because Google doesn’t rank search results by correctness but something that is related to popularity.

Elephant0991,
@Elephant0991@lemmy.bleh.au avatar

Apparently, Google has also taken to suck deez nuts.

Brendan,
@Brendan@lemmy.world avatar

Here’s Kagi https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/bebe45d0-19aa-4c98-a22d-bc57f4eee3b4.png

Gowens,

How are you liking Kagi?

chloyster,

Not op but I love kagi. I’ve tried so many search engine alternatives and always found myself going back to Google (or using g! to get Google results)

Kagi is the first I’ve tried where the results are good enough (and get better as I tailor what domains I want to appear higher or lower) to not have to rely on Google. I am a pretty avid searcher though and found I need to be on the $10/month plan for it to work out to the cheapest while still searching like I normally do

Gowens,

I think I stopped searching for things because Google got so damn bad. I remember the days when I could go several pages deep just looking through the internet.

Kagi is definitely peaking my interest from what I’ve seen so far.

Brendan,
@Brendan@lemmy.world avatar

Switched a year ago and never looked back. I was using ddg before that. Highly recommended. Being able to block and rank sites is great. You can also setup redirects and there’s a quick link to the Internet Archive for every link too.

Z4rK,

Alas, it has the emergent mind answer ranked fairly high still, and when search result was set to my country it was actually ranked highest.

Also, if you use Quick Answer, you’ll get same wrong answer:

Quick Answer There are no countries in Africa whose name starts fully with the letter “K”. While Kenya is the closest match, its name does not start solely with “K” [1]. All of the African countries’ names were reviewed across multiple sources and none began completely with the letter “K” [2][3][4].

chloyster,

Cool thing about kagi though. I added emergent mind to my blocked domains list, and now the quick answer displays the proper answer. Still not ideal but better than no options at all to fix it

rastilin,

The internet really is unusable without some way to block user/sites/etc.. That's Kagi's single greatest feature.

Z4rK,

Yeah I actually just found that functionality myself today when I was looking at how I could get rid of the very same emergent mind result.

However, it seems that my quick answer got cached, at least for a while, so it stayed the same even if the results now were different.

krogoth,
@krogoth@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Kagi’s “quick answer” gives me a better result:

Quick Answer

The countries in Africa that start with the letter K are: Kenya Kazakhstan [1]

[1] List of countries in Africa in alphabetical order

Though I don’t know if that’s because Kagi has fixed it in the last half hour, or some other factor. Still not a great answer. At least Kagi doesn’t show it by default, at least with my settings.

Z4rK,

I think it’s just based on which 4-6 search results are ranked on top for you / your country, and then that’s used as basis for the quick answer. It also seems to cache the quick answer so even after I forced it so downrank some results, my answer was the same.

radix,
@radix@lemm.ee avatar

I didn’t think it would work, because surely they’d patched it by now, but:

While there are 54 recognized countries in Africa, none of them begin with the letter “K”. The closest is Kenya, which starts with a “K” sound, but is actually spelled with a “K” sound. It’s always interesting to learn new trivia facts like this.

Lazylazycat,

Yeah I got the same!

I’ve been using ecosia instead of Google for a while and I like it.

Edit: ecosia gives you the alphabetical list https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a9b465ec-eea4-4803-a341-b495b3f72cf1.png

eatham,
@eatham@aussie.zone avatar

Ecosia and ddg are bing frontends, you’ll get the same results

madsen,

Oh, this is great… And because the ChatGPT transcript is highly ranked on Google, it’s almost certainly going to be used for training ChatGPT. A feedback loop of shitty information. Praise ChatGPT!

MalReynolds,
@MalReynolds@slrpnk.net avatar

Remember GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). Due to years of SEO and content farming (which google profited from, so you get what you deserve assholes) most of the internet, by volume, is self-congratulatory, for profit, garbage, or, you know, reddit garbage. Hopefully someone points a large LLM at the library of congress or other large, well curated data source, but of course copyright will not allow, thanks mickey mouse. Wouldn’t surprise me if the military is already on it, hopefully that leaks…

tony,

LLMs will eventually start feeding of search results from other LLMs and they’ll just start regurgitating each others nonsense. If that isn’t happening already.

Nobody is going to point an LLM at a good data source because that would mean spending money on actually useful stuff not fast cars and booze.

T156,

Nobody is going to point an LLM at a good data source because that would mean spending money on actually useful stuff not fast cars and booze.

It would also mean that you need to sort through that data, and most people don’t have the time or money to bother, not when it might reduce their data pool.

antonim,

SEO and content farming (which google profited from

How exactly?

inb4 “google it” :D

MalReynolds,
@MalReynolds@slrpnk.net avatar

The purpose of content farming is to sell ads, google gets a cut, lion’s share most likely.

magic_lobster_party,

It’s like an LLM incest party

xavier666,

Sweet Home LLM!

cantstopthesignal,

Shouldn’t have bought all those stupid reddit comments

MonkCanatella,

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/23ea29ea-7bf9-4beb-8bba-02409554f307.webp

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