this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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Google became crap ever since they added AI. Microsoft became crap ever since they added AI. OpenAI started losing money the moment they started working on AI. Coincidence? I think not!
Rational people don't want Abominable Intelligence anywhere near them.
Personally, I don't mind the AI overviews, but they shouldn't show up every time you do a search. That's just a waste of energy.
You can choose how often you want the AI Overwiew to appear! It like asks you the first time you get one in a small pop up. I still think they should instead work on "highlighting relevant text from a website" like how google used to do. It was so much better.
I did not know that. Never noticed a pop up. And does this work with both search engines? You can turn off the AI features on DuckDuckGo with like two clicks, but I can't seem to find the option on Google.
I was talking about DDG because I thought you were talking about DDG in the last part. I dont think you can turn off AI completely on Google.
Google became crap about 10 years ago when they added the product banner in the top, and had the first 5-10 search results be promoted ads. Long before they ever considered adding AI.
Time is sneaking up on us. It's not even 10 years anymore. It's closer to 20. 💀
I guess. And then they removed the "Don't be evil" motto just to drive the point home.
But you have to agree, the company DID become even worse once they started using AI.
Oh absolutely. It's just important to remember that they've been horrible for a long time, and has shown more ads in a single search than your average 30 minute youtube video.
Google became crap shortly after their company name became a synonym for online searches. When you don't have competitors, you don't have to work as hard to provide search results -- especially if you're actively paying Apple not to come up with their own search engine, Firefox to maintain Google as their default search engine, etc. IMO AI has been the shiny new thing they're interested in as they continue to neglect search quality, but it wasn't responsible for the decline of search quality.
Google and Microsoft were crap before AI, I don't remember when google removed the "don't be evil" but at that point they have been crap for a few years already.
Indeed Young_Gilgamesh
Yeah google kinda started sucking a few years before AI went mainstream, the search results took a dive in quality and garbage had already started circulating to the top.
I have a uBlock filter for those
I mind them. Nobody at my workplace scrolls beyond the AI overview and every single one of the overviews they quote to me about technical issues are wrong, 100%. Not even an occasional "lucky guess".
Good for you. I Meant as a design choice for a search engine. Why waste electricity?