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.”


I think the best content on the Internet hasn’t gotten worse, but there is so much trash now so the average got dragged down.
Search engines are supposed to find the best content for us but have failed miserably as of late.
You can just add before:2020 to try to sidestep the recent flood of LLM crap.
You can actually go as far as 2022 if you’re okay with a little easily spotted AI in the search. It was 2023 when LLMs really took off, but if you want to be certain then use 2020.