David Revoy | Mastodon | Bonus Timelapse

Transcript

The Degraded Search Engine

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. Cepper, the gothic sorceress, walks toward a large steampunk machine in the center of the library written “Gooblin” on it, colored letters. The machine resembles a rusty block, with a threadmill on one side, a seat and a typewriter-style keyboard.

Cepper: “A good old ‘search engine’, this is what I need for my research!”

Panel 2. Close up, Cepper types on the typewriter keyboard, looking at the screen.

Cepper: “R.I.N.G. O.F. F.I.R.E S.P.E.L.L.S. enter”
Cepper: “...And voilà.”

Panel 3. The machine spits out dozens of scrolls and books. Cepper reads them.

Cepper: “Wait... Why are these results so bad?...”
Book 1: “(Ad) Ten Fire Spells That Will Change Your Life (You Won’t Believe the 7th!)”
Book 2: “(Sponsored) 15 Spicy Onion Ring Recipes”
Book 3: “(For you) Top 5 Best Engagement Rings”
Book 4: “(ad) How to Start a Campfire: A Comprehensive Guide”
Book 5: “Is Your Fire Spell Not Working? (Try This One Simple Trick!)”
Book 6: “(Sponsored) Cheap Fire-Resistant Panties! (50% Off Today Only!)”

Panel 4. A librarian approaches, their AI Parrot perched on their shoulder, pointing it. Cepper looks defeated, her eyes blasé.

Librarian: “Yeah, they tuned it this way so everyone just uses their Avian Intelligence for searching now...” Cepper: “...How unsurprising.”

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[–] 14 points 17 hours ago

This artist's gags (at least the ones that make it to this comm) are all anti-AI. It's like their thing. That said while Google search has been getting (intentionally) bad for a while it's been ridiculous recently, and since it's intentional anyway* it's not hard to imagine that funneling users to Gemini is their new thing.

*I remember reading a couple years ago that they had back rolled an update that improved search results, but not the details.

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