Google is about to ruin the internet.
And I love the internet. I love websites. I love sending links to my friends. I spend nearly my entire workday looking at various Chrome tabs. I enjoy looking at websites I’ve never looked at before.
All of that is going to change with Google’s new search updates, which lean into AI-generated answers. Its plans gave me an awful sinking feeling.
The big change will be to integrate AI even more into search — instead of typing in a few keywords and getting a list of links, Google will spit out more AI-powered answers to questions and personalized requests (I’ll explain more in a bit.)
When a Big Tech company gives a demonstration of a new product, you’ve always got to look at it with some skepticism, so let’s take this with at least a grain of salt: But Google, this week, said its new features would let an AI agent send you updates whenever your favorite athletes launch a new sneaker, for instance. (I am not sure how it knows your favorite athletes, but, at the same time, of course, Google knows that about you.)
A personalized internet isn’t the internet
I really struggled to get into the mindset of someone who wants this. I’m not a sports fan or a sneakerhead, so new athlete-endorsed shoes don’t thrill me, but I do enjoy shopping, so I can see the appeal of buying cool new sneakers. Do I want an alert when an athlete or brand announces this? Do I expect this to be something I wouldn’t see in a TV ad, read in a style magazine, or see on the athlete’s Instagram? Like, I guess I can see some convenience here, but there’s already a robust ecosystem of ways to get this information that I find generally pleasurable to engage with.
Another example: Someone asking Google for advice on where to go for a hike with restaurants and parking nearby. That’s a nice, wholesome project for a demonstration, but I can’t imagine using Google in this way. I use Google in that time-honored way we’ve all been taught: typo-laden, two-word utterances — not elegantly worded requests.
I usually already know what I want to find; I just need help getting to the website that gives me the thing I want.
Google, of course, is bullish on its new product — and especially the personalization of it all. “We believe the best version of search is one created just for you,” said Robby Stein, vice president of product for Google Search, during the I/O presentation this week.
I guess? Sure?
Stein gives an example of a college student asking about black holes. The student types a question in the search bar, and Google gives an AI-generated answer and creates a customized animation that shows how black holes work. (Eventually, it will give you a few links to other information about black holes.)
OK, cool. But that’s not really what “search” is, right? That’s just an AI chatbot that answers highly specific questions.
‘Google Zero’ might be coming
All this is obviously potentially very bad news for websites that have depended at least in part on Google search traffic, including the one you’re now reading. There’s been an expectation of this coming eventually — a doomsday event referred to glumly as “Google Zero” when Google traffic, which has been dropping across the news industry for the last few years, eventually hits zero. AI Overviews and people using other AI tools like ChatGPT to find information have already cut deeply into publishers’ search traffic.
I am aware that my aversion to this new search experience may seem like self-preservation, since this is ostensibly not good for the journalism industry (in the short term, at least). But I assure you that my complaints are more personal and short-sighted. I am annoyed that this will change how I search and how I experience the internet.
I think of “the internet” as a place you go to; it shouldn’t come to you.
I know it’s outdated, but imagine the information superhighway — a physical space of roads, silos, and dungeons you can wander around. Google is the doorway to it. It hands you the map so you can give yourself a self-guided tour. But you’re on your own in there.
By doing this for, say, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for, say, two decades, you become quite adept at knowing where to look and how to navigate. I still think of the internet this way.
The new Google seems like a gated community
But a version of the new AI search is one where you never have to venture out onto the internet; it’s brought to you in a sanitized form by an intermediary. It’s like living in a gated community with a strict HOA vs. a walkable city with public transit.
I know that harping on the virtues of “websites” is something only old people do; a leftover of the techno-optimism of people who spent time on old-timey messageboards or blogs. And, well, sure, I’m an old crank, but I’ve also got the youth on my side on this one. As my colleague Dan DeFrancesco writes, Gen Z has an aversion to AI — and this may affect how they adopt these new Google search products. I say, if Gen X fads like hacky sacks are back, then so should caring about the open web.
I don’t want Google search to trap me into its AI HOA! I want my internet experience to have a tacky-colored house, an unkempt lawn, and a year-round 12-foot Home Depot skeleton. That’s what the internet should feel like to me: something to explore and venture out into, even if that means a tiny bit of imperfect friction.
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