TL;DR I hate AI but unsure if Google's Search AI just a fancy google search, or if it's evil
I've previously fallen down the rabbit hole of using ChatGPT to help me with research. It was broadly useful, but kept insisting on doing my job, of creative writing, for me, and also just straight up hallucinated stuff with zero research. It was also very easy to fall into a Hank Green style cyber-psychosis with it and I developed very unhealthy habits with it. It is a predator designed to leach human engagement and I hate it.
After it literally started killing people by encouraging suicides I deleted all of it and stopped using them. But lately, I've struggled with research for my historical novel and found Google's default search lacking. I had way more success using the AI Mode search, since I can actually see the sources it uses and verify everything manually, but it still feels gross. It started using Grokapedia as a source and that kinda broke the spell for me. I can verify a legit source myself, but I can't verify everything it says and DOESN'T source.
So yeah, basically I'm asking if Google Search's AI Mode is a fancy search engine, distinct from the inhumane generative LLM robots, or if it exactly the same evil and I've just had the wool pulled over my eyes - again.
Honestly, my tin foil hat is that Google has deliberately ruined their search engine to make me use the AI mode, and try and train of my searches - thought I give absolutely nothing back, and share nothing personal. I say this cos I've noticed that Translate has gotten significantly worse, but when my partner used AI to translate her work it was as good as in the past.
I hate not having any trust in anything corporate or online anymore.
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