Google Search has like 10 years of history of doing its best not to get you to click on a search result, but to answer your question directly or at the very least keep you on their platform while screwing over website owners.

The first two iteration of this were AMP and Instant Answers, the third one is AI Overview. AI Overview should not be seen in isolation, but as a part of the pattern. If it weren't for it, Google would double down on some other method of reaching the same goal.

This one will end up the same way the other two did: there's gonna be a vocal minority that's gonna consider it unfair and a web killer, the vast majority of users won't have an opinion, Google will not care, "the web" will play along, those early adopters are temporarily gonna have an advantage in this "new age" and some will die in the process, but the vast majority is gonna continue on as if nothing happened.

It's also not gonna be the final iteration of this process because shiny new things sound better to investors than marginal improvements, so X years from now AI Overview is gonna be seen as something "old-fashioned", Google Search will pivot once again, and the rest of the web will follow to keep Google happy.

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memoriuaysj 3 hours ago | parent [-]

you know, there is a third group - a large number of users which find the AI overview useful

	▲	bossyTeacher 2 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		HN's hate for LLM based AI blinds it to this uncomfortable possibility
	▲	benterix an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Which is saddening as the first thing I think when I see this overview is "How do I verify this statement is correct" and paradoxically it sometimes just slows me down.
	▲	input_sh 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> the vast majority of users won't have an opinion They're here, they don't care how they get from point A to point B, the tech used to achieve that result is completely irrelevant to them. AI? Great. Not AI such as the Instant Answers era? Also great. Average Joe does not spend his time thinking about the economics of the web. But you shouldn't confuse them finding "AI" useful now with them being attached to it long term. It's a hip new tool now, but the novelty will fade and Google will have to re-invent themselves all over again. If anything, they kinda screwed themselves over by calling this "AI". AI is supposed to be something within reach, but always some years away. By wasting that term for the current era, it's gonna suck so hard to think of a new marketing term that's gonna be seen as an improvement in comparison to the term "AI".
	▲	irl_zebra 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Yeah hate to say it, because I am an AI hater, but I love the AI results in Google and Kagi. I barely click results anymore for basic questions unless it's something important enough for me to need verification to ensure the AI-gen answer wasn't a hallucination. It's been so nice not having to pick through the cesspool that is StackOverflow to find answers to quick cli questions, or wade through SEO-generated, Amazon-affiliate link garbage for more general questions.
	▲	touwer 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Very large even. Especially considering the explosion of ai-crap in the search results