{
  "id": 10285007,
  "title": "When did Google get so f-ing weird?",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/27/when-did-google-get-so-f-ing-weird",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-27T20:12:54.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Hacker News",
    "slug": "hacker-news",
    "url": "https://sancho.bearblog.dev/google-weird/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In 2014, the Philadelphia 76ers drafted basketball player Dario Saric, who was playing professionally in Turkey at the time. The Philadelphia fan community jokingly claimed that Dario would never come to the USA to play for the Sixers. Recently, while conducting a straightforward Google search, the author experienced something so peculiar that it stopped them in their tracks.\n\nThe author's search query was simple: \"hes never coming over dario.\" They expected to find old tweets or Reddit posts from 2010s fans recalling the joke. Instead, Google presented an AI overview, an unexpected development in the search engine's capabilities.\n\nGoogle, a search engine without human emotions, inferred that the author had been rejected by a man named Dario, and offered an empathetic response. The author was initially annoyed by this, but now sees it as a stark reminder of how much Google has changed in recent years. The AI overview seemed to suggest that Google was trying to console the author, rather than providing direct search results.\n\nThe author questioned Google's mission and asked whether the company's purpose is now to be an empathetic listener rather than simply finding relevant information on the internet. They argue that this shift disorganizes the way the world's information should be accessible and useful. The author wonders if the integration of AI and chatbots into search engines is making people feel like they need to engage in a constant, parasocial dialogue with their computers.\n\nDespite their mixed feelings about AI and chatbots, the author finds Google's recent behavior genuinely strange. They question whether it's acceptable to have an AI overview when using a search engine, and whether the use of large language models (LLMs) has led to a decline in the quality of search results.\n\nUltimately, the author is left feeling perplexed by Google's transformation. They acknowledge that some parts of search may have been fine before AI integration, and they are unsure about how to feel about the current state of the search engine.",
  "summary": null,
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Hacker News Best",
        "title": "When did Google get so weird?",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/27/when-did-google-get-so-weird",
        "published": "2026-09-27T20:12:54.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}