Episode 35: AI Overviews and Google's AdTech Empire (feat. Safiya Noble), June 10 2024

You've already heard about the rock-prescribing, glue pizza-suggesting hazards of Google's AI overviews. But the problems with the internet's most-used search engine go way back. UCLA scholar and "Algorithms of Oppression" author Safiya Noble joins Alex and Emily in a conversation about how Google has long been breaking our information ecosystem in the name of shareholders and ad sales.

References:

Blog post, May 14: Generative AI in Search: Let Google do the searching for you
Blog post, May 30: AI Overviews: About last week

Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, by Safiya Noble

Fresh AI Hell:

AI Catholic priest demoted after saying it's OK to baptize babies with Gatorade

National Archives bans use of ChatGPT

ChatGPT better than humans at "Moral Turing Test"

Taco Bell as an "AI first" company

AGI by 2027, in one hilarious graph

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Music by Toby Menon.
Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park.
Production by Christie Taylor.