Google Can't Stop Being Evil
A day can’t go by without Google doing something terrible. From donating to Trump, to censoring and altering YouTube videos, to using AI to summarize articles, to selling search results for the highest bidder, Google leaves no stone unturned in their search for awfulness. But their latest evil scheme might be their most nefarious.
PCGamer writer Joshua Wolens discovered that Google are now changing headlines in search results, without the permission of websites or even telling them. Using AI, they’re doing A/B testing on headlines, changing them completely as to not reflect what the article is about.
One of the examples Wolens gives is this:
“So, for instance, Lincoln's headline, ‘Child labor is unbeatable: Baldur's Gate 3 players discover how to build an army of unkillable kids through the power of polymorph and German media laws’ became, ah, ‘BG3 players exploit children.’”
Another exampled cited in the article is:
“Poor Ars Technica, for instance, had an article with the original headline ’Valve’s Steam Machine looks like a console, but don’t expect it to be priced like one.’ All very reasonable. Google's AI turned that into ’Steam Machine price revealed,’ which is actively misleading.”
I don’t have to say why this is bad, right? Like, I’m supposed to lay out the case for why this terrible thing is terrible and cite evidence and theory and stuff. But, like, come on. I shouldn’t have to say that changing an article’s headline into something completely different, without the website’s or author’s consent is bad, right?
This is not only morally reprehensible, but this has to be breaking some kind of law. Let me rephrase that: In a just world, this would be breaking the law. But we live in Trump World, where corporations can do whatever they want as long as they give daddy Trump a nice payday.
But then again, laying this all at the feet of Trump is giving him too much credit. Big business has long had a field day with law and morality, always getting what they want at the expensive of everyone else. These headline changes are the work of AI, which every tech company on Earth is trying to shove into everything right now to justify the trillions of dollars being laundered raised by this theft machine technology.
The absolute worst part of this is that website are completely powerless to do anything about it. They can’t just ask Google not to tamper with your headlines. They can’t remove themselves from Google. There’s no hope that a lawsuit will succeed in this climate. There is literally nothing anyone can do if Google decides to keep doing this. The world will just get a little bit dumber, as it continues this hell march turn Idiocracy into a documentary.
For us users, we can at least use alternatives to Google’s search engine. I’ve been using a combination of StartPage and SearXNG for a few years now. While they’re not quite as good as Google was during its prime, they still lead to solid results. They show you want you actually want to see, and they don’t track you. Though, frankly, I’m beginning to think more and more that the answer is to just leave the internet entirely. I’m not convinced we’d be missing much.