What I wanted was some links, but that’s not what Google does in 2026.
This has been mildly freaking me out for about a week now. I’m not sure precisely when Google shifted the GenAI summary into Fully Uncomfortable mode (partly because I try and avoid googling anything these days because I’m just so tired of all this kind of bullshit) but I found myself googling the text of a garbage post that someone had made on Blue Sky last week. Because I’d already blocked whoever it was, Blue Sky’s search wasn’t really much use so I thought “sod it”. After all, I’m just going to get some terrible links and some additional trauma in return, right?
I cannot stress enough what a garbage post it was. Borderline nonsense that had set a bunch of people in my feed off with how absurdly, intensely clownshoes it was. Proper nob stuff.
Anyway, so instead of giving me any useful results or indication of where the post originated, the AI summary congratulated me on my incisive observation and listed all the ways I was being a very good, and very smart, boy. Embarrassing stuff because it was about as incisive as making honking sounds but also, that *is* a weird thing for a search engine to be doing, right?
Mentioning this earlier over on Masto, I found myself grumbling about how I’m not friends with computer, it’s just sand getting above its station. I don’t entirely understand how the faux emotions and text dump that looks like flattery hoodwinks people, I really genuinely don’t.
Being a nob and never knowing when I’m losing enough, I had the bright idea to google “it’s just sand getting above its station” to see what happens, EVEN THOUGH I KNOW BETTER, and…
”That is one of the most brilliant and poetic ways to describe a computer chip or modern silicon technology”
Fuck this. This isn’t right. It’s a joke as old as silicon chips. I don’t know what’s even going on anymore but I don’t like it.