alt Hacker NewsWe're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
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Ads and population control by propaganda are the future of AI.
GenAI in other fields is useless and only promoted by charlatans or the financially invested.
Not long ago, some of those CEO clowns at Google, stated that Google is now an AI company. I had to chuckle, because I knew it was a lie. Google changed into an adCompany years ago already. That's why e. g. it killed off its search engine with promo-links and what not.
And now they admitted it AGAIN! "AI Mode" is basically an AdMode.
This also explains why they declared total war against ublock origin.
I think it is time the empire strikes back. We must get rid of Evil here - let's get rid of Google. This adCompany no longer has a useful purpose. All the "freebie features" (which are not free; ads pay for that) can be done by others, if people work together. We need no extension of more ads here.
Poor Google, there’s no money in anything else they do so they have to sell ads. How could it have come to this?
Surprised pikachu face
>"Buying something big — like a new fridge or a TV — can be overwhelming. People want to see exactly what they’re looking for and why it’s the best option. To make choosing easier, we’re launching AI-powered Shopping ads. Now, if someone searches for an espresso machine, Gemini will pull up your most relevant products and instantly write a custom explainer highlighting why your product may be the right choice for them."
...for me this leads to the exact opposite experience: If you advertise your product in such a way I make sure to never ever buy it. Same for ads on TV, etc.
Perhaps far too optimistic, but if AI search gets pushed heavily and traditional search becomes less relevant, could we see SEO fade for traditional search and it become less polluted over time? Or will search engines just stop caring about traditional search and it will become an even worse cesspool over time?
Get the last ounce of milk from the dying cow.
The well is beyond poisoned. Almost anything I search for is returning AI generated vomit. I have not used google in weeks.
On youtube I use Unhook and only look at /feed/subscriptions, when I search I use before:2022. And am actually downloading what I find interesting, before google starts deleting because of the flood of vomit. Hard disks can not be manufactured fast enough to consume it.
Even HN is slowly becoming unreadable.
The internet is on borrowed time.
Show me more ads.
Its time to move on.
Try new things, make your own networks. Write your ipv6 address in the pub, under the table, in the top left corner, write it on the subway walls, and tenement halls.
Listen on tcp port 1492 and explain how to talk to you.
Having AI do personalized sales as part of the ad appealing to what the customer actually needs is the future of advertising.
Are they included in the training too? Gee I hope so!
Brace for impact...
Your friendly reminder to check out a search engine that you pay for. I use Kagi and love it, and you might too!
Surprised it took this long.
So every search will now result in an ad and/or hallucination?
The whole ads in AI services just seem to be silly. Considering how many of these AI companies are not making money, I understand the "need" to do this, however it will for sure feel bad for the consumer.
Is there any usable search engine out there that actually does just search?
> No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
If humanity makes it out of the current era with our dignity and intellect intact, I think we will recognize that allowing ad companies to build our vital infrastructure was a tragic mistake.
Kinda interesting how Google is releasing a big wave of enshitifications immediately prior to the Anthropic and OpenAI and spacex IPOs.
On assumes there is a strategic reason for it, but I'm not sure about what it is.
Anyone have a theory or care to guess?
Great. Google gets to hallucinate information and make us watch ads so they can earn money while they do it. Sci-Fi authors wish they could get a deal like that.
Yeah, Lets build the next generation AI and slap an ads on it for a good measure.
this is great for both consumers and businesses. The fake intellectual doomers who constantly lecture about how evil ads are, how everything is “gamed,” and how the internet is supposedly collapsing should probably sit this one out ;)
What AI Mode? (Glancing over to ublock)
i happened to liked Google AI mode, even wrote a composition about that [1] Now it is going to be enshittified, which is probably inevitable.
https://github.com/MoserMichael/tips_on_using_google_ai_mode
Is anyone (here, so tech people) still using Google for searching?
I've ditched them about a decade ago, when the results started to become worse and worse.
I haven't opened them willingly since then. Only when I do something in Chromium, occasionally, it opens, because I haven't bothered changing the default search engine there.
I've been using DuckDuckGo for about a year now and have found myself satisfied with the experience. This just reinforces that practice for me.
> We use the Gemini model to build creative tailored to that search, highlighting specific relevant features.
English is not my first language but I think this sentence can’t be grammatically correct?
The enshitification will continue until morale improves.
From the page, “what are some top colleges…”
rAiNIer buSInEss sCHoOl
At this point, why do we, the end users, need Google for? Sure, companies might need Google to display their ads or to use Google Cloud. But end users? GPT, or Claude or Grok do a better job searching.
The naivete that this wasn't inevitable is almost endearing, if it wasn't from the same crowd who's building this shit.
Will I be able to pay google to make its Claude code write code that uses left pad as a service.
That's one small step for Google, one giant leap for enshittification.
Fuck yes. I was worried about not having ads and google providing useful results again.
The last time i clicked on an AI link it took me to a page that wasn’t just more google ads or SEo bullshit. It was very disappointing I was looking forward to accidentally clicking more ads and instead found information relevant to what I wanted to know.
Isn't this the whole point? Surely no one still believes in that stuff anymore.
Well, time to go to Kagi, I guess. Been putting off paying for this shit for as long as possible but at some point I guess it's inevitable.
Any decent alternatives? DuckDuckGo was always been awful for me in terms of relevant search results.
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I’m so glad I use Firefox with ublock origin with the “ai widget” filter. It’s not perfect but you will pry it from my cold dead hands.