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Archive link: https://archive.ph/GtA4Q

The complete destruction of Google Search via forced AI adoption and the carnage it is wreaking on the internet is deeply depressing, but there are bright spots. For example, as the prophecy foretold, we are learning exactly what Google is paying Reddit $60 million annually for. And that is to confidently serve its customers ideas like, to make cheese stick on a pizza, “you can also add about 1/8 cup of non-toxic glue” to pizza sauce, which comes directly from the mind of a Reddit user who calls themselves “Fucksmith” and posted about putting glue on pizza 11 years ago.

A joke that people made when Google and Reddit announced their data sharing agreement was that Google’s AI would become dumber and/or “poisoned” by scraping various Reddit shitposts and would eventually regurgitate them to the internet. (This is the same joke people made about AI scraping Tumblr). Giving people the verbatim wisdom of Fucksmith as a legitimate answer to a basic cooking question shows that Google’s AI is actually being poisoned by random shit people say on the internet.

Because Google is one of the largest companies on Earth and operates with near impunity and because its stock continues to skyrocket behind the exciting news that AI will continue to be shoved into every aspect of all of its products until morale improves, it is looking like the user experience for the foreseeable future will be one where searches are random mishmashes of Reddit shitposts, actual information, and hallucinations. Sundar Pichai will continue to use his own product and say “this is good.”

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[-] just_another_person@lemmy.world 80 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Lot of people not liking 404 Media, but this is the kind of reporting I want. Point out what's going wrong. Bring it to a conversation without a lot of skew. Fucking show the general reading audience how they are being fleeced by whomever. Didn't Vice do this at one point?

[-] Shialac@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago

Maybe. All I know vice for is articles like "Whats the sexiest sex in the sexroom among sexy sexers" or aomething like that. So the average r/askreddit post

[-] Drusenija@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

So if they were basically regurgitating Reddit already, does that mean they were using AI before it was cool? They might have just used the Amazon approach to AI (I.e., why use technology when we can throw a bunch of minimum workers at the problem).

[-] aStonedSanta@lemm.ee 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I recall vice doing that at one time also.

[-] sheogorath@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago

Isn't 404 media the guys from Vice who left before it imploded?

[-] aStonedSanta@lemm.ee 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/22/business/media/404-media-vice-motherboard.html

Apparently so! I dunno how to remove the paywall for others I just use reader mode.

[-] febrile@lemmy.world -1 points 6 months ago

Just create an account, it's free.

[-] aStonedSanta@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago

And give them my data? Nahhh

[-] ours@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

The article's author was the Editor-in-chief of Vice's Motherboard as stated in his bio.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago

They were always hit-or-miss, but we're all worse off for them getting eaten by a hedge fund.

this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
1375 points (98.7% liked)

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