Hope you all are doing awesome today!
It’s been a bit since my last blog, and I apologize for that! Between getting sick and some personal stuff coming up, I couldn’t find the time to write these as much as I would’ve liked to.
For today though, I wanted to share some thoughts on the new Google I/O announcements that took place a couple of weeks ago, and the implications that the new Google AI Search might have on original content. So much so, that it makes me wonder what the consequences would be for my own content in the future.
To balance that topic out, I also want to dive into some of the latest anime and TV shows I’ve been watching! I finished up some of the ones I mentioned last time, and there are others I’ve been checking out too.
Lastly, I’ll be talking about some games I’ll be jumping into next now that I’ve finished up God of War!
Let’s jump in!
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Between everything going on in May, Google had their I/O conference. I try to keep up with anything new going on in tech, and there were some thoughts I had from their latest announcements that I wanted to chat about.
Years ago, I used to frequent various forums for information on hobbies. Reddit has since taken over a lot of those communities, as well as other closed-off platforms like Discord.
One of the memories I have on those old forums had to do with people creating a new thread about often-asked questions, only to be met by people replying with a link to a website called something like “Let me Google That,” where it would be a very passive aggressive message to push people to just Google their question instead, so that repeated threads weren’t created!
It got the point across, and would result in hilarious banter between people on those old forums.
Regardless, for years now, Googling a question has always been a way to get answers or to find relevant, and fairly accurate information. Sponsored results would skew information sometimes, but it was fine for me to just jump past paid results to see original content I wanted to find online.
After this latest I/O announcement though, I worry about the future of finding websites and content like this to visit online. More so, after testing around with my own work, it makes me question the future of finding audiences online.
On their blog page for this announcement, Google mentioned that for the first time in over 25 years, Search will be “…completely reimagined with AI.”
AI Overview has been around for a while now, but it was always pretty random when it would appear for me whenever I searched on Google. However, I’ve noticed it popping up much more lately. While it does display the sources that it’s pulling information from, it doesn’t necessarily highlight the exact information — nor does it really encourage users to click towards that source’s website — especially if they’re just there for a quick answer.
One of the main worries I have is that people will be relying on these AI Overview results a lot more compared to finding information for themselves — even if that information is wrong or misleading. For years now too, I feel like people have made “Just Google It” synonymous with getting truthful answers. A report by the Associated Press covered a study on AI chatbots, highlighting how they are “…so prone to flattering and validating their human users that they are giving bad advice that can damage relationships and reinforce harmful behaviors.” For me, I don’t think a lot of people even know this, and it worries me that highly agreeable AI tools/systems are being implemented in so many places now.
After this I/O conference, some results on Google were returning odd AI Overview results as well, such as users trying to get the definition for “disregard,” which seemed to confuse the AI and acted like an instruction/prompt instead of just a typical search tool, as reported by TechCrunch, though it seems to be working at the time of writing this blog. Regardless, it’s upsetting to me because I used to be able to look up a word’s definition all the time on Google using the dictionary/definition tool, and it seems to have now been replaced by AI Overview.
For my own work, I’ve been happy to see that some of my articles will appear on the first page of Google results. For example, some of my Fallout articles seem to do well with this. If I type in “fallout 4 piper,” I’ll see my article on Piper Wright pop up in the results on the first page. However, I’ve also been seeing my article be absorbed into the AI Overview as well…
But, if my work shows up in these overviews, then what is the point for anyone to actually click into my articles, if all they wanted was a quick look at a certain topic? What incentive would people have by digging further unless if they were specifically trying to find more information, or if something else stood out.
I’ve also seen the issue of misleading information as well — or information that’s partially incomplete. For example, if I search “what are the core beliefs of Joe from The Saved Game on Substack,” then I can find information that is both true and untrue at the same time (as well as getting various results each time I search). In one example, it talks about how my publication “…advocates for the preservation of video game history and the importance of actual game ownership in the digital age,” through my Game Save articles. This is not entirely true though, especially since I’ve only covered ownership issues once as far as I know. I think it’s just seeing “Game Save” and imagining it’s about video game preservation. Likewise, it mentioned “gameness,” which is a term I’ve definitely never used before, and I think that was being pulled from somewhere else.
Stuff like this makes me wonder: What else is AI Overview getting wrong for anything else I search? Or what is it at least getting partially wrong?
More importantly though, this all makes me wonder about the future of searching and finding quality content and information on the internet.
Honestly, and unfortunately, not much can be done on the side of using Google.
As reported by TechCrunch, DuckDuckGo saw installs for their browser peak at a tad over 30% after the Google I/O conference. As a browser, DuckDuckGo allows users to control AI results, so that they can opt out if they would like to instead of seeing AI-generated results. I’ve used it, and it works pretty well — though I just need to give it some more time before I switch over to something new or recommend anything.
Education will also be important going forward in my opinion. Older folks especially need to be aware of potentially misleading content on AI Overviews, and that just “Googling it” should be taken with extra care nowadays before blindly trusting the results. Just the way a question is formed can change the output from my own experience, especially when it seems to want to overly agree with users.
As a writer and creator who would like to continue to expand my work, I’m not sure what options I’ll truly have to keep my work from being merged together with other sources in AI Overviews.
Substack does offer a way to opt out of certain companies from using your content. But, would doing that completely block my content from certain platforms, like Google’s Search results? I’ve not been able to definitively find this out, except for Substack’s own words, which says that opting out “…may limit your discoverability on these [ChatGPT and Gemini] platforms.”
In the future, I hope that companies like Google will give users the option to opt out of AI results without fear of losing relevance. In the long term, I feel like there has to be some incentives to make sure that real people keep creating original content and making sure they stay relevant. Otherwise, it seems like these AI models will start/continue to train on generated content that’s been flooding the internet right now — almost like a snake eating its own tail.
Regardless, it’ll at least be interesting to see what the future holds — though demoralizing might be a better word. Through it all though, I’ll still be creating original content and focused on my readers, and I hope that future readers will be able to easily find my work!
As I mentioned at the start, May was filled with a lot of personal stuff going on, allergies causing me to get sick for a couple of weeks, and a lot more!
As far as The Saved Game, I was still able to get a couple of articles written, including a new Game Save write-up, as well as an article on Detroit: Become Human.
First up though, let’s dive into some of the recent shows I’ve been getting into, and then wrap up with the gaming section at the end!
In May, I was able to wrap up season 3 of Spy x Family! This was a fun anime, and I really enjoyed the lightheartedness behind the story and characters. It was still interesting to keep watching all the way through, with the main cast really driving the story forward.
I think season 2 was my favorite, just with the storyline that followed Yor on the cruise ship! It was hilarious, and the found-family dynamic works perfect for a show like this!
It was fun, it was heart-warming, and the comedy was awesome! I’ll be looking forward to keeping up with future seasons of this show!
I have never watched this anime before!
Throughout the years, I’ve been recommended it so many times, but kept pushing it off. Recently though, I started watching it, and I can’t believe I’ve never seen this anime until now!
I remember seeing scenes from a different Fullmetal Alchemist anime years ago, which seemed a lot darker after I saw a certain scene that has been burned in my mind since then. After that, I pushed it off until I felt like something more melancholy.
But, I’m glad to see that Brotherhood is a redo of the same show, but a lot more lighthearted! I’ve read that it follows the source material, so I’m glad about that. The tragic backstory works really well for the Elric brothers, and I’m invested to find out what happens next and what the ending will be.
I’m not too far into it, but I’m excited to watch more!
Arcane is one of those shows that has been on my mind to watch for a few years now, but never got around to it. A friend of mine recommended it after telling me about how amazing it is, so I decided to finally jump in…
…and it’s been awesome so far!
I was worried at first that I would need to be aware of League of Legends before watching it (which I’m not), but I’m glad that I didn’t need to be. I’ve been loving the characters so far, and the backstories are masterfully told through near-perfect exposition. Just when I feel like the story might slow down some, it speeds right back up, all while not feeling rushed either. The art and design of it is also fantastic, with it feeling very original and executes well!
The only thing I wish is that the trailers I saw for it didn’t reveal as much as they did. While I’ve never looked up spoilers, I feel like I connected too many dots after seeing promotional art and the trailers.
Regardless, it’s still really good and I should be finishing up season 1 soon!
True to form, I’ve still been into Dragon Quest as of late!
Before that though, I wrapped up God of War (2018) a week or so ago, and had such an amazing time in that game! The world itself was incredible to explore, with so many moments that made me emotional and amazed at the same time. I’ll be writing about my experiences in a future article, so I don’t want to go too deep into it now, but I loved this game, and am so happy I got around to finally playing it all the way through.
One thing I’ll say is that I loved the storytelling and exposition between all of the characters. The pacing felt just right, and I loved all of the moments that revealed the truth about Kratos’ past. I also used the photo mode way too much — so when I do write up an article on this game, there’s going to be a lot of screenshots!
Now that I’ve finished up GoW, I plan on starting my next adventure in the Dragon Quest series with Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake on the Switch! I picked it up about a month or so ago on a good sale at BestBuy with a coupon I had, and I’ve been dying to play more of it.
I started up a new game right after I bought it, but got sidetracked with everything else going on. Coming from DQ:XI to this one is definitely a change, but the remake looks really good so far!
I’m sure that I’ll have a lot of thoughts on this game in the future, and I look forward to sharing more on it!
Lastly, I’ll be having another collaborative article soon to celebrate one year here on Substack!
More information will be available soon, so keep an eye out on my Chat as well as Substack Notes for updates. I’m hoping to get something out this week on this!
Thanks for reading, and I look forward to chatting again soon!
See you all next time,
Joe
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