this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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Google has become so integral to online navigation that its name became a verb, meaning "to find things on the Internet." Soon, Google might just tell you what's on the Internet instead of showing you. The company has announced an expansion of its AI search features, powered by Gemini 2.0. Everyone will soon see more AI Overviews at the top of the results page, but Google is also testing a more substantial change in the form of AI Mode. This version of Google won't show you the 10 blue links at all—Gemini completely takes over the results in AI Mode.

This marks the debut of Gemini 2.0 in Google search. Google announced the first Gemini 2.0 models in December 2024, beginning with the streamlined Gemini 2.0 Flash. The heavier versions of Gemini 2.0 are still in testing, but Google says it has tuned AI Overviews with this model to offer help with harder questions in the areas of math, coding, and multimodal queries.

With this update, you will begin seeing AI Overviews on more results pages, and minors with Google accounts will see AI results for the first time. In fact, even logged out users will see AI Overviews soon. This is a big change, but it's only the start of Google's plans for AI search.

Gemini 2.0 also powers the new AI Mode for search. It's launching as an opt-in feature via Google's Search Labs, offering a totally new alternative to search as we know it. This custom version of the Gemini large language model (LLM) skips the standard web links that have been part of every Google search thus far.

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[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Psythik@lemm.ee 16 points 1 day ago

Unlike most of Lemmy, I actually like AI and even I don't want this.

[–] Apoplexy@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago (3 children)

How many cases of "You should eat at least one small rock per day" AI bullshit does Google think is acceptable for production deployment?

More than zero, which is too many for my taste.

[–] negativeone@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I was just dealing with a plumbing problem the other day, and I was like, “I know, I’ll ask AI!”

Basically everything it told me was completely wrong. And this was Claude Sonnet 3.7, one of the best!

[–] Sizbang@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wait...you shouldn't be doing that? Damnit! What am I going to do with the small rock mine I just bought?!

[–] absentbird@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago

The AI suggests painting it and adding it to a garden as decoration.

[–] grepe@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

thinking google is about offering you a quality search at this point is like thinking facebook is about improving your social experience. they both started like that and that's how they hooked people up. but they have their own interests now. those interests revolve around affecting how people act and think. one central thing they need to do to fulfil those interests is controlling what people see and know... and that's very hard to do when this pesky external content generated by other that is hard to control gets into way...

[–] higgsboson@dubvee.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They always had their own interests. If you thought otherwise, you're naive. People generally start a business to make money.

[–] grepe@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

maybe i am naive, maybe you are cynical.

some people do somerimes start business cause they have a good product in mind..

[–] higgsboson@dubvee.org 1 points 1 day ago

Oh I'm definitely cynical, sometimes too much so, but its often warranted.

You're right, though, just because the (vast) majority are money grabs doesnt mean they all are. Lots of businesses are started by someone trying to figure out how to make a living doing something they love. Or genuinely trying to solve a problem, money being secondary. I've never had that drive, but I do know e.g. artists who are "in business" for themselves and quite happy at it.

[–] negativeone@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Embrace, extend, extinguish, but now it’s Google doing it to the World Wide Web.

[–] ZeroTerabytes@lemmy.cafe 4 points 1 day ago
[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

...hmm that's kind of shitty and it uses ten times more energy! Let's go full enshitification!

[–] absentbird@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't get what they gain out of this, doesn't it remove the sponsored results? Or will people pay to nudge AI weights to recommend their products?

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Example:

How do you make the best cookies diy?

....the new Nabisco Cookies can be crushed to a fine powder mixed....

What are other non-nabisco cookies I can cook?

...Nestle chocolate chip cookies of course!

[–] negativeone@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Remember to protect your cookies with NordVPN!

[–] TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Dear Google,

Literally no one wants this.

[–] stardreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Nope. Plenty of people want this.

In the last few years I've seen plenty of cases where CS undergrad students get stumped if ChatGPT is unable to debug/explain a question to them. I've literally heard "idk because ChatGPT can't explain this lisp code" as an excuse during office hours.

Before LLMs, there were also a significant amount of people who used GitHub issues/discord to ask simple application usage questions instead of Googling. There seems to be a significant decrease of people's willingness to search for an answer regardless of AI tools existing.

I wonder if it has to do with weaker reading comprehension skills?

[–] ArcturusRoot@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Technology Connections posted a very great video about this recently. Algorithms are breaking how people think and lulling them into complacency, losing the ability to think, research, discern. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJpZjg8GuA

[–] 4Robato@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I think it's simply that getting a direct answer is easier than reading different forums with different views and come up with your idea. That doesn't mean people want google search to stop searching. We have gemini, if I want to use gemini I can go to gemini. I don't get why everything has to be AI. We can have multiple tools, not everything out there is a nail.

[–] stardreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Somehow I disagree with both the premise and the conclusion here.

I dislike a direct answer to things as it discourages understanding. What is the default memory allocation mechanism in glibc malloc? I could get the answer sbrk() and mmap() and call it a day, but I find understanding when it uses mmap instead of sbrk (since sbrk isn't numa aware but mmap is) way more useful for future questions.

Meanwhile, Google adding a tab for AI search is helpful for people who want to use just AI search. It doesn't take much away from people doing traditional web searches. Why be mad about this instead of the other true questionable decisions Google is doing?

[–] 4Robato@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

First of all, as long as it doesn't replace search I'm fine with more options, I don't like when a company forces me stuff, that's it. I just think this is pointing to a future where search disappears and I don't quite like that.

You might dislike a direct answer but young people don't. The design of the applications can encourage certain types of behaviors, can spread misinformation and promote racism as we have seen in many social media now.

Things like Instagram and TikTok stress me out by the speed they show content and I could conclude no one will use those but then you see the new generations and how they even listen to music there, just the chorus of a song and go to the next one. This way of consuming information is being promoted by how the apps are designed; it is no coincidence that depression is increasing among young people.

You can say that in principle people can use more responsibly this types of social media, but that's not the reality when we have algorithms trying to maximize the time we spend on the phone. Also, how do you know that companies don't add biases to LLMs? Turns out Gorg (the LLM on twitter) they have added to the prompt to not criticize Elon or Trump. That's the current problems of LLMs is that we don't have context and even if there is context, if you have to put effort into it people won't do it. This happens to scientific articles where people never check the sources, imagine with other stuff...

I honestly like LLMs and I think they are fascinating and very useful in a lot of situations! And efforts like Perplexity gives me a bit more faith than google just throwing an LLM that suggests to eat rocks. And while you might see that eating rocks shouldn't be done, there's this bias that can be build behind any LLM that affects in a way that will be hard to avoid or notice. Same way current algorithms affects us more than we think they do and polarizes opinions.

I mean will see where this goes, I just want companies to take the matter seriously.

[–] Rooty@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I'm decrepit enough to remember pre-Google web, with competing search engines. Bring back webrings!

[–] Obi@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 day ago

Altavista baby.

[–] KreekyBonez@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

sometimes you just gotta ask Jeeves

The fact that Ask Jeeves isn't an AI-only search engine is just beyond me. It was laughable that someone thought to personify a search engine 25 years ago, but now is pretty much the right time for that.

[–] OverTheFiniteSun@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Please! We need more competition for Google.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 86 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Technofascists really benefit from certain kinds of information being inaccessible…

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 37 points 2 days ago (1 children)

fascists really love LLM's. like ridiculously in love with them. it's where all their 'art' comes from. it's made of the shallow aesthetics with no interiority they love so much. plus it doesn't really require articulating your desires much, or having artists.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

To borrow Alex Jones’ term - it is information warfare. Train people to accept the outputs of LLMs, attack media literacy (in conjunction with the fact that public schools in the US spent ten years not teaching children how to read), and hide actual sources.

You can have your LLM trained to weasel around the fact that the chattel slavery of black Americans was the primary cause of the Civil War, or falsely represent science surrounding gender and sexuality (they’re explicitly tuning Grok on this).

You don’t have to worry about subversive messages on war or women in your “AI” generated “Ghibhli” film. Have all the fun space faring of Star Wars, without the prequel geopolitics everyone hated until they saw it happen.

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

yeah. letting silicon valley build the sword with which to slay the dragon Truth was really some 'neon genesis evangellion' grade bullshit. posadism hasn't failed in this timeline, though. fingers crossed.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I’m stoned so:

The technocrats (Bezos, Thiel, Zuckerberg, etc) are SEELE. Musk is Gendo - ie, at the table but rogue (and I don’t want to imagine what he’d do with a planet full of Yue/Rei’s) Thiel doesn’t trust Musk, so Vance is like his Kaji. (Misato is like literally a Freud caricature of a woman, so we can make her a couch to fit the whole sexual ethos)

COVID was the second impact. The angels are attendant disasters that go with it and things like climate change etc.

Luigi is Kaworu, a gorgeous bisexual twink who is being crushed by the system.

The American people are Shinji, paralyzed under stress and trauma. Asuka is a bunch of other countries, being very angry at Americans for not doing shit while not really coping with their own problems.

Rei is obviously the internet/technology.

The globalists have been priming us for this information the entire time! Pre programming! Please buy my protein power.

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[–] Djfok43@lemmy.world 38 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 26 points 1 day ago

Capitalism. Next question...

[–] LemurAppointments@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This is exactly why I'm working so hard to eradicate the verb "to google" from my vocabulary. I switched to DuckDuckGo (which then started providing AI summaries, but allowed an easy opt-out).

[–] rhpp@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

Even better, use the google verb to refer to searching anywhere other than Google and effectively genericide it.

[–] FixedFun@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

DuckDuckGo'et' nah, it doesn't work.

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Number one reason to at least distance oneself from the big G. They shove unwanted shit down your throat despite the loud protesters

No more google at all. Thanks for making it easy for me.

[–] octopus_ink@slrpnk.net 205 points 3 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (18 children)

Does EVERY axis in life have to be fucked up at the same time?

Can we have one thing that is just doing ok?

Government - fucked.

Education - fucked.

Healthcare - fucked.

Environment - fucked.

Housing - fucked.

Societal and Social Cohesion - fucked.

Wealth Inequality - fucked.

Personal Technological Autonomy - fucked, and under continuous attack.

Technological Enshittification - Running like gangbusters. So really - fucked.

Damn, someone give me some kind of ladder to climb out of this pit of despair.

[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don't forget about housing! Can't even have shelter from the elements without paying through the nose to some rent-raising billionaire or giant corporation...

[–] octopus_ink@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago

Updated! :)

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 155 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Every single one of these flows from wealth inequality.

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[–] jaemo@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Wait, google does searches now too? Wow they have a service for everything.

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