Wow some terrible reporting about Google's latest horrible ideas about how to distort information access in the name of "convenience" (or something):

[nicoe@mamot.fr]

@simpleanecdote @Qybat @emilymbender yeah that's what my embed was about, it will be just like product placing in the movies, you don't see them but they're there and they shape what's normal and desirable

[wcbdata@vis.social]

@emilymbender It is "antigravity" in the marketing/community-management sense of "gravity." It'll definitely push everyone away...

[lukeharby@infosec.exchange]

@emilymbender So long, Googles.

[thejessiekirk@ohai.social]

@emilymbender Kagi

[mcahalane@mastodon.world]

@emilymbender so we won't know what's AI slop and what's a real site?

[bms48@mastodon.social]

@emilymbender My bigger worry is if they start ensloppifying scholar.google.com. Zotero Connector eats it right up. Semantic Scholar isn't a patch on it for grabbing bibliographic records and tracking references, I have seen noticeable distortion in its results. Their pipeline is somewhat ML driven but they do use LLM summaries. This is expected given the origins of the service. Provenance is everything.

[syntaxseed@phpc.social]

@emilymbender These companies desperately want to stop us from finding & enjoying each other's content. Walled gardens of social media & mega platforms weren't enough, now the search directories will be the ultimate walled garden.

All built on stealing the work of everyone who's ever published anything online.

Why would anyone create anything anymore? I already feel my own desire to blog is waning.

[fiar_light@beige.party]

@emilymbender Silly, you're acting like there's any need for links. To do what? Check the veracity of the AI-generated wisdom and information being provided to you by the high priests of Google?? Heresy! Blasphemy!! How durst thee???

[lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza]

@emilymbender, that was exactly the point at which I started configuring browsers to add “&udm=14” to all searches done via Ggle.

Most recent case? I noticed that Calibre does word lookup. It will happily do so via Ggle; and, yes, the slop summary is shown.

[lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza]

@emilymbender, he's mostly right. It definitely is helping the world… burn.

[mrmoore@mstdn.social]

@emilymbender Sometimes it feels like these people are trying to create a world from science fiction stories. For example, in Star Trek when they ask the computer something and it just gives them the answer. They don't understand that plenty of science fiction has no basis in reality and/or are terrible for how our brains actually work (like you've pointed out).

That or they are just greedy bastards that are looking to exploit anyone and everyone for a profit.

[mspcommentary@mastodon.online]

@emilymbender wait! You can opt out?!

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@emilymbender it's an XKCD reference isn't it?

[damonwakes@mastodon.sdf.org]

@sleepfreeparent @mrmoore @emilymbender Also they can show their ads on their platform without those pesky users nipping off to see the source of the information (and possibly supporting it in any way).

[damonwakes@mastodon.sdf.org]

@emilymbender Oh, goodie. They've invented a guy who barges between you and the library shelves and proceeds to give you his vague recollection of what some of the books say. Sort of. Maybe. Unless he decides you were actually looking for something else.

[jackeric@beige.party]

@whitequark @emilymbender surely. `import antigravity` in python, about 20+ years ago

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@jackeric @emilymbender doesn't make it less cringe, of course

[jackeric@beige.party]

@whitequark @emilymbender indeed

[taghunt@infosec.exchange]

@emilymbender
Good thing they block adblockers then aye?

[mrmoore@mstdn.social]

@DamonWakes @sleepfreeparent @emilymbender It's amazing how it's changed from want to get users out of search to websites, as quickly as possible. Now, it's the opposite. Keep users in search as long as possible and don't allow them escape to the websites.