Let’s take an example.
We know that searching stuff on Google got worse, but imagine if AI replaced it completely. Searching the web would be something like making prompts to a chatbot, a complete black box of information. AI could make sure that you don’t get conflicting views on state policies or acess to copyrighted materials…
The worse thing is that AI easily can be programmed to show you whatever opinion they (the people who controls the AI) have.
From what I understand, Elon Musk literally said he wants to change Grok so it performs literally this.
This already happens, no AI necessary.
All of these things would have been possible to restrict on good old Google searches. And they are enforced to varying degrees around the world to differing legal situations. You shouldn’t be able to search for child porn anywhere, swastika merch in Austria, insults of the king in Thailand, etc.
Search on Google mainly got worse because of Google. They made their results more shit to get you to click on follow ups, the dreaded page 2 of results for instance, where they could sell more ads.
I do agree that so-called AI search is more of a black box. Although the Googles and the Bings want you logged in to personalize the results, you can find a way to test their otherwise mostly obscured algorithms in a neutral setting. The models may not allow that and/or testing their metal may have yet to be invented. But they will replace search as we knew it.
The growing faith people have in whatever LLMs spit out (over old school searches) is very concerning. It’s like LLMs are the new Facebook conspiracies. Schools need to teach media literacy as its own subject. All people under 70 today should have to get a media drivers license.
Edit: And I didn’t even mention the “right to be forgotten.” That also exists in the EU.
There are already AI models trained for distributing intentional misinformation. Grok and DeepSeek are two such examples.
Commercial AIs are already censored black boxes.
I’d like to think that a move like that would kill Google (as the search leader) but I bet there are a lot of people who would find it easier to use and never question the results.
Traditional search engines like Google can already do that, though.
An increasing number of people I know already go straight to ChatGPT to search for things that are not direct websites links.
