Do we really need someone who is artificially intelligent, summarising important concepts for us?
The answer may surprise you.
Yes, because most of us are always on a deadline. We want quick information. There's a human out there demanding a reply for a query, and while the screen hides you well, your fingers are scrambling to deliver accurate information.
You don't have time to scroll through several websites and click on each one of them to find the answer.
You need AI to churn out and answer in seconds.
And it does. But is it accurate? One can hope.
For the sake of a debate, let's just say no, we don't need an AI overview at the top of every search result.
It's distracting. It's summarising points. The answer may not be factually correct. You need some prior knowledge of the subject matter before you accept the answer. Then you need to verify the citations before you decide that yes, this result could be correct.
If you do want more information, you end up scrolling down and visiting an actual website that may just explain what you need to know.
And visiting these sites means you keep them alive and relevant.
AI overview is akin to a large chain store eating away at the business of local mom-and-pop stores.
But here's the interesting part of AI: remember how it's supposed to be artificial intelligence?
That means it lacks a brain. It boasts of a memory reserve, but that may very well belong to a dementia-ridden patient.
It may remember information you saved and parrot it in every conversation in an AI tool. Then on the fourth day, it has already forgotten context and gives you a hallucinated answer. Because it has pride. AI tools are programmed to be arrogant and never admit they don't know the answer.
And how do they get these answers? By scraping online content from actual websites for updated information, because the data they are trained on is slightly outdated.
Basically, all AI Overview does is give you a summary of the content on a website, so you don't have to visit that website.
The website doesn't get views, doesn't earn money, and gets taken down. AI bots begin to scramble for the next website they can "borrow" content from.
Eventually, it runs out of verified and accurate information from legit sites because it puts them out of business, and now it has to scrape data from a gossip site.
In case you were banking on AI to give you all factual answers, perhaps you would be better off visiting a library and picking up a textbook written decades ago.
So...what is the point of the AI overview?
It's there to annoy you and give you summaries you didn't ask for.
It's there to make you judge whether what you're reading is accurate or a hallucination.
It's trying to be an assistant no one wants, but it's trying to further complicate the job market anyway.
Our over-reliance on something without an actual brain may probably not be profitable for us in the long run.
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