- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
Google has become so integral to online navigation that its name became a verb, meaning “to find things on the Internet.” Soon, Google might just tell you what’s on the Internet instead of showing you. The company has announced an expansion of its AI search features, powered by Gemini 2.0. Everyone will soon see more AI Overviews at the top of the results page, but Google is also testing a more substantial change in the form of AI Mode. This version of Google won’t show you the 10 blue links at all—Gemini completely takes over the results in AI Mode.
This marks the debut of Gemini 2.0 in Google search. Google announced the first Gemini 2.0 models in December 2024, beginning with the streamlined Gemini 2.0 Flash. The heavier versions of Gemini 2.0 are still in testing, but Google says it has tuned AI Overviews with this model to offer help with harder questions in the areas of math, coding, and multimodal queries.
With this update, you will begin seeing AI Overviews on more results pages, and minors with Google accounts will see AI results for the first time. In fact, even logged out users will see AI Overviews soon. This is a big change, but it’s only the start of Google’s plans for AI search.
Gemini 2.0 also powers the new AI Mode for search. It’s launching as an opt-in feature via Google’s Search Labs, offering a totally new alternative to search as we know it. This custom version of the Gemini large language model (LLM) skips the standard web links that have been part of every Google search thus far.
I think it’s simply that getting a direct answer is easier than reading different forums with different views and come up with your idea. That doesn’t mean people want google search to stop searching. We have gemini, if I want to use gemini I can go to gemini. I don’t get why everything has to be AI. We can have multiple tools, not everything out there is a nail.
Somehow I disagree with both the premise and the conclusion here.
I dislike a direct answer to things as it discourages understanding. What is the default memory allocation mechanism in glibc malloc? I could get the answer sbrk() and mmap() and call it a day, but I find understanding when it uses mmap instead of sbrk (since sbrk isn’t numa aware but mmap is) way more useful for future questions.
Meanwhile, Google adding a tab for AI search is helpful for people who want to use just AI search. It doesn’t take much away from people doing traditional web searches. Why be mad about this instead of the other true questionable decisions Google is doing?