Google AI Overview made up an elaborate story about me

The model that google is using to handle requests in their search page is probably dumber than the other ones for cost savings. Not sure if this would be a smart move, as search with ads is their flagship product. It would be better having no ai in search at all.

> as search with ads is their flagship product.

no, ads are their flagship product. Anything else is just a medium for said ads, and therefore fair game for enshittification.

> better having no ai in search

But then the product manager wouldn't get a promotion. They don't seem to care about providing a good service anymore.

> probably dumber than the other ones for cost savings

It's amusing how anyone at Google thinks offering a subpar and error-prone AI search result would not affect their reputation worse than it already is.

It's making stuff up, giving bad or fatal advice, promoting false political narratives, stealing content and link juice from actual content creators. They're abusing their anti-competitively dominant position, and just burning good will like it's gonna last forever. Maybe they're too big to fail, and they no longer need reputation or the trust of the public.

Bad information is inherently better for Google than correct information. If you get the correct information you only do one search. If you get bad, or misleading information that requires you to perform more searches that it is definitely better for Google.

This is a variation of the parable of the broken window. It is addressed in what may be the most influential essay in modern economics, "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Perverse incentive structure

That makes sense, poor search results lead to more engagement. That is devious.. Now that you've pointed it out I can't unsee it.

In same cases, lower quality of search results leads to more ad clicks and thus more revenue.

I don't think most people care if the information is true; they just want an answer. Google destroyed the value of search by encouraging and promoting SEO blog spam, the horrible ai summary that confidently tells you some lie can now be sold as an improvement over the awful thing they were selling, and the majority will eat it up. I have to assume the ad portion of the business will be folded into the AI results at some point. The results already suck, making them sponsored won't push people any further away.

I've also thought about this. It has to be a terrible AI to scale like this and provide these instantaneous answers. And probably heavy caching too.

What's your point here? That Google wouldn't do this because "the broken window fallacy is a fallacy"?

We have them on the record in multiple lawsuits stating that they did exactly this.

if it's dumber than the other ones then it must be really fucking stupid

I've never liked that parable; it seems to me an incredibly poor argument, standing on its own. It literally itself contrasts the definite circulation of money in the destruction case, with a "could" spend on other things. Or he could not. He could have kept it, waiting for another opportunity later, reducing the velocity of money and contributing to inequality.

It doesn't even cover non-renewable resources, or state that the window intact is a form of wealth on its own!

I'm not naive, I'm sure thousands have made these arguments before me. I do think intact windows are good. I'm just surprised that particular framing is the one that became the standard