I can back up that claim by pointing to the popularity of other search engines

I would love to see that research paper. Just to be clear: you are claiming that google is… Not the most popular search engine? Or that it is losing popularity?

You still haven’t answered my questions, though.

When did I make that claim?

As to my point, it is that google searches have not failed me to date, AI has only improved it, and saying “but it gave me something wrong once!” is basically that “old man yells at clouds” meme.

It is a fact that Google results have been getting worse over time.

Care to back up that unfounded claim?

Other search engines don’t seem to have a problem answering the question

Two for one! Mind giving me some supporting evidence? Nothing anecdotal, mind you. Show me that “other search engines” answer questions better than google, statistically.

Okay? As I said, google has been giving incorrect results for decades. Now, just like before, it gives incorrect answers sometimes. But it has gotten a LOT better at giving those correct answers.

Either way the point still stands.

What point?

I had someone correct me with a misconception about something because he googled it and thats what it said in the answer box

Oh, honey. You must be new here. Googling something, taking the first answer that fits your needs, doing zero follow up, and posting it confidently is nothing new. That has been happening for the last few decades.

It’s getting increasingly difficult to rely on search results especially when google synthesizes them into questions and answers with little context

In what way? Like always, I have had to do a little critical thinking to gain anything out of my google searches. But now, sometimes the answer is right there. In what world is that a bad thing?

But you might just say “hurry durr it give me answer, therefore correct”. Again, yes, that has always been the case. People will use any tools available to them to support their point. If a new tool has less than a 100% success rate, I don’t see that as a problem.