We've Got Answers...
I remember a long long time ago when Radio Shack was still around and wasn't the laughing stock of the retail industry, they had a slogan. "You've Got Questions, We've Got Answers". It was a pretty catchy tag line, and back in the day, it was actually pretty accurate. I was reminiscing with someone the other day about how we used to have to read books about every single part and product in the store, and then we would have to take tests to be certified in the individual sections.
Like telephones, home audio, car audio. electronic components, CB Radio, television antennas, etc. That way, if someone came in the store, we honestly had a pretty good answer for them. Of course, this was back before the Internet, so knowledge like that had a bit more of a gatekeeper aspect to it. It actually worked pretty well for the store until they decided to shift 90% of their focus into cellular phones, and then the bottom fell out.
This post isn't about Radio Shack though.
Instead, it's about that technology we all love to hate... AI. I attended a conference at the very end of October, and one of the first sessions I attended was all about different AI products or tools that are out there. The presenter did a really good job of analyzing each product or site and giving his estimation as to whether it was bogus, legit, or maybe on the fringe. He actually based a lot of his presentation on a book called AI Snakeoil or something like that.
In the course of the presentation, he had certain break out sessions where people would talk to each other about different aspects of the subject. I actually hate presentations like this because first off, I'm just not good at talking to people. Second, it gets so loud in the room with everyone talking that (especially with my ADHD), I can't understand a single thing the person sitting right next to me is saying.
After each discussion section, the presenter would have a couple people talk about one interesting thing that was discussed in their small group. One of the attendees mentioned how their group was talking about the Google Gemini search results that many of us are seeing these days. It was actually probably one of the most interesting things I picked up from the conference and I am going to share it with you today.
It was so interesting, that I immediately put it down in my Google Keep notes because I knew I was going to write a post about it at some point in the future.
Did you know that when you go do a Google search and you get the Gemini AI summary at the top of the page, it is only giving you a summary of the sites that are found on the first page of your search results. Now, think back to the last Google search you did. Were you able to click on the first site it gave you and get the information you wanted?
Or did you have to scroll down past about five or six ads or "sponsored" links before you were able to actually find the page or information you were looking for?
There lies the problem. With over 50% of the first page of results when you do a search being advertising or sponsored content, what kind of accurate or unbiased information are you actually getting from that Gemini summary? It's actually kind of scary to think about. I know myself I am guilty of just taking the info that Gemini gave me and running with it.
Don't get me wrong, 80% of the time it might be accurate, but you still have to stop for a second and consider who or what you are allowing yourself to accept as fact.
Sadly, I don't really see anything changing. Google has built a huge business on advertising and those sponsored links. I doubt it is going away any time soon. Additionally, people are more and more favoring convenience over accuracy, so likely this is probably the new normal.
Just keep this in mind next time you do a Google search and see that Gemini AI summary at the top of the page. What truth are you being sold?
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Never look at it that way. When I do get it in the search results it is mostly because I did ask a question and not so much some search criteria.
But it makes sense for them to use this as an extra incentive to sell their adds space.
Now,I do look Gemini much more than I do like ChatGpt. I tried deepseek for the first time yesterday and that was 3 strikes and out :)
AI will help us, but only if you understand how to use and not to trust it blindfully!
I probably use Gemini more than anything else simply because of the search results like that. I have never used ChatGPT that I know of, but I do have Grok installed on my phone and I have played around with that a bit. I also started using LEO the other day which is the AI that is built into the Brave browser.
demo
I haven't used Google in years, so I have no idea what they are doing these days. In fact, the other day when I saw that Berkshire bought 4b in Google stock, that was the first time I even read anything about them in years.
But yeah, if their AI only summarizes the first page, and most of the first page is ads (and I'm sure the other 2-3 pages shown have been SEOed within an inch of their life anyway) then that would lead to questionable results.
The DuckDuckGo AI results are from a heavily anonymized ChatGPT so they aren't based on any displayed results, just on the typical chatGPT results, which is probably mroe of a regurgitation of Reddit and Wikipedia.
I use Brave pretty much exclusively at home and I have been starting to play around with the LEO AI that they have built in. It is interesting, but still not something I am willing to dive into head first!
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:u37t33dyaufvrqujwmvm54ln/post/3m5y7mavhns2b
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:u37t33dyaufvrqujwmvm54ln/post/3m5y7mavhns2b
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Excellent. That's a very interesting proposal you're describing.
Excellent. That's a very interesting proposal you're describing.
Sad that it's all ad driven garbage at the beginning and you're forced to search down to find what you want. It's why I gave up Google in favor of DcukDuckGo sometime ago. I got tired of all the ads!
It seems a lot of people use that one these days. I haven't looked at it because I don't know enough about the group behind it. I feel like they have some angle just like Google.
The curation of information only gets worse over time with evil companies like them. Thankfully I haven't used Gulag in years at this point, intentionally giving my traffic elsewhere so that I don't feed into their beast. Reasons like this are specifically why I don't use that evil company's products as frequently as I can prevent it.
It is pretty scary though, considering the crap that's out there. The dead internet theory is stronger and stronger every time. Go to a search engine that actually does pagination and try to click on page 43 of the supposed 600,000 available pages. You get the same shit regurgitated. The search results are largely complete horse shit and just recycling itself into bigger and bigger numbers.
Off topic...
It's funny, I was writing a post tonight and found this site for words with definitions and thought of you. The words are kind of lame though, mostly scientific mumbo jumbo. I tried a few of them but it doesn't flow well lol
https://perchance.org/complex-word
That is a pretty cool site. I use Google quite a bit where I work. It's just part of our culture here. The sad thing is you usually have two choices either Microsoft or Google and neither of them are great. There is a third option, but it requires most of your end users to hate you and life to be downright miserable for you, so it's really not much of an option at that point.
That is something to think about indeed! I think it's going to make us all lazier too. We will stop being willing to do all kinds of things that take extra steps, when AI can just do it for us.
Yes, we are already starting to see that happen sadly!
The staff at Radio Shack were pretty incredible people. I don't know how much those (mostly) dudes got paid, but I hope it is was a bit over minimum wage. The people in those shops knew how to repair almost anything and the stock of various resistors and what not, were extensive and they knew about each and every one of them. I don't even know how someone acquires that sort of knowledge but I guess the people who worked there were just tinkerers that enjoyed fixing stuff. There aren't many people around anymore that have that sort of knowledge.
One of the last electronics that I ever purchased in USA was a tablet from Radio Shack. I wonder if they are even in business anymore.
No, they went out of business shortly after I stopped working there. Maybe 5 years later they went bankrupt. My stock that I had purchased went to zero and is worthless now. I think they still might have an online site, but all of the corporate owned stores closed down. I think there are still a handful of franchise stores out there. We didn't get paid much over minimum wage and our salary was a commission hybrid, so there really was a lot of incentive to upsell people which I never really liked.