There was a more innocent time when Googling was ubiquitous, and trusted answers could be found in everything you could imagine. Sadly, those days are past, as we have blundered our way into a present dystopian reality.
Earlier this month, China launched Deepseek, a rival Artificial Intelligence (AI) that has rattled the industry dominated by America. Apparently, it cost less to create and run, spawning a popular meme about ChatGPT losing its job to AI.
While it represents a definite threat to the incumbent crowd, it has the same problem: it can be trained to apply prevailing biases and censor content deemed embarrassing or harmful to its owners or political overlords. A cited example is that Deepseek was reluctant to answer questions on Tiananmen Square, a sensitive political topic in China. Similarly, ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini have been evasive on Israeli oppression of Palestinians, even to the point of genocide denial.
In a recent online discussion with a woman from Finland, she refused to believe that America had annexed any countries in its history. I decided to Google the question. This was the contradictory and specious search result for “Did America annex any countries” from Google’s Gemini AI:
As you can imagine, I was stunned at the AI’s attempt at deception.
Since AI is now ubiquitous, it’s our responsibility to be more discerning about who and what we trust. Ironically, I Googled alternatives to Google and these are among the suggestions: DuckDuckGo, Bing, Ecosia, Gibiru and Swisscows.
Bing is Microsoft’s search engine; by default, it is neither popular nor trustworthy. I’ve heard of DuckDuckGo before and maybe will give it a try. However, Swisscows sounds both intriguing and amusing.
I can imagine a future where “just Google it” becomes “DuckDuck Google and go Swisscows it.”
lenny unencumbered 