AI vs AI

Slop in, slop out.

If you’ve done much googling recently, you’ve probably noticed the odd and dubious set of sources that Google’s large language model draws from in generating the “AI Overviews” that now appear at the top of the company’s search results (after the ads, of course). Rather than dig deep into authoritative writings on a subject, Google’s bot usually pieces together its overview from recently published, cursory summaries posted on a hodgepodge of highly trafficked websites — the same dumbed-down, search-engine-optimized sites that have long appeared highly in Google results. Taking the path of least epistemic resistance, the AI slaps together a bland, often unreliable summary of summaries and presents it as a judicious, objective overview.

The problem becomes more acute when you search for advice on buying a product or service. The overview in this case tends to be a synthesis of text drawn three kinds of sources: (1) promotional sites run by businesses that supply the product or service, (…