AI is becoming unavoidable in websites and apps, but there are ways to opt out. Photo / 123rf
Let’s say that you’re worried about artificial intelligence turning us into mushy-brained monsters, draining resources from the planet, slurping all your data and human knowledge, preying on vulnerable minds, wiping out jobs, choking your favourite websites, lying to you or not being useful.
Too bad. AI is becoming increasingly unavoidable in websites and apps that you use.
That’s why it feels so freeing on those rare occasions when you’re actually given a choice: go with the robots or absolutely nope.
I’ll fill you in on lesser-known options that let you hide AI-generated material in Google and DuckDuckGo web searches. These opt-outs can be fiddly but it’s rad to have the power over AI for once.
When Google started to spit out AI-generated summaries at the top of many search results last year, the company also gave you a (well-hidden) option to see only plain vanilla website links and text instead.
This “Web” filter is a flashback to how Google search worked many years ago – if you can ever find it.
Ernie Smith, editor of the Tedium newsletter about technology and obscurities, figured out a cheat code that shows you the no-AI Google search results without fumbling around in Google’s tabs or settings with every search.
You might still get text advertisements under “sponsored”. Mostly, though, you’ll see Google’s suggested web links without AI summaries or other doodads crammed into search results like product images that are ads in disguise.
You can hop back to the AI-and-other search results by hitting the “All” option that’s just under the search terms.
You have at least two relatively simple ways to get AI-free Google search results:
1) Type your search into the website that Smith created, UDM14.com, named after the cheat code. This takes you straight to Google’s website-only search results that are tricky to find otherwise.
Bookmark the website and use it for some or all of your Google searches. This does send information on what you’re searching to Smith, who says it’s not being collected or saved.
2) With certain web browsers, you can change your settings to make the no-AI search results the standard every time. Smith has instructions or check out the One Tiny Win section below.
Smith cautioned that these tricks may work inconsistently or stop working at some point.
Other tips you can find online to exclude AI summaries from your Google searches, include adding “-AI” or sprinkling curse words into your search terms. Smith said those tricks aren’t really effective.
Smith uses Google a lot for work and found the AI “overviews”, as Google calls its AI-generated summaries of relevant websites, unwelcome and unhelpful. “In a lot of ways this is a very basic hack,” Smith said, “to solve a problem that Google created for its users.”
A Google spokesman said in the company’s testing, people find their search results more useful with features like the AI overviews. The company also says a small fraction of people shift from the standard search results with AI summaries to the web-only option.
You might find it handy to have AI-generated summaries in your Google search results. I sometimes do. Smith’s hack puts the choice in your hands rather than Google’s.
Last week, the privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo gave you a new power to filter out AI-generated material from image searches.
This is a big deal because people have complained about searches in Google Images, Pinterest and other visual sites churning up slop and AI knockoffs. (Pinterest said it’s experimenting with options to see fewer AI-modified images.)
In DuckDuckGo’s settings you can make it standard to hide AI images in searches, or pick that option in each image search.
DuckDuckGo says this feature uses available online lists of AI material that won’t catch all AI-generated images.
Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo also lets you easily and permanently turn off AI-generated summaries in your search results. (From DuckDuckGo’s settings, choose “never” for what it calls AI Assist. You can also hide DuckDuckGo’s chatbot.)
Gisele Navarro, managing editor of product-review website HouseFresh and an astute observer of web trends, said it’s refreshing that DuckDuckGo gives users the freedom to stop AI material.
“As a user, I feel listened to and allowed to make my choice,” Navarro said. “As a web publisher, I feel my human content is being appreciated and given the chance to be found.
These instructions are for Chrome, the most popular web browser and the standard for Android phones. With these changes to your settings, Google or DuckDuckGo web search results should automatically exclude AI material.
The DuckDuckGo one is essentially the nope-to-AI nuclear option, hiding all AI search features from your face entirely.
None of these options work if you’re using the Safari browser for Mac or iPhones.
For Google search: In Chrome’s web browser for a computer, click the three dots in the top right corner.
• Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines and site search > scroll down to “Site search” and choose “Add”.
• You can make the “name” and “shortcut” fields anything you like. Example:
Name: AINOPE
Shortcut: Gminus
URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
Then click “Add”.
• You should see that option show up now under Site search. Click the three dots on the right and choose “Make default”.
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For DuckDuckGo search: In Chrome’s web browser for a computer, click the three dots in the top right corner.
• Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines and site search > scroll down to “Site search” and choose “Add”.
• You can make the “name” and “shortcut” fields anything you like. Example:
Name: AINOPE
Shortcut: Dminus
URL: https://noai.duckduckgo.com/search?q=%s
Then click “Add”
• You should see that option show up now under Site search. Click the three dots on the right and choose “Make default”.