Google Wants to Be Your Friend

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No wonder Google long ago abandoned its motto “Don’t be evil.” Click that to see the mishmash you now get when you search on Google, all junked up with all sorts of commentary and videos. Now see what Startpage, the search engine I normally use, produces when you ask it the same thing. Startpage uses Google’s search API but keeps you anonymous. This it doesn’t “customize” results based on who you are or what you’ve searched for previously. It also doesn’t pepper your results with AI slop.

I recently learned^* that Google is replacing its search box with an AI prompt box. At the moment it’s optional but will soon become the default query mechanism. Except it isn’t a search engine anymore, it’s an answers engine, and they are hoping you won’t have to leave Google to satisfy your need for information.

I just tried it. My first question was:

What should I search for?

This is the URL for the page I got. Clicking that link will probably get you different answers than I got. Find mine below.

That URL used more than 1000 characters—a healthy paragraph’s worth—to communicate my query to an AI model. There’s a lot of info in it, opaquely encoded. I would love to know what Google is telling its faithful servant it wants it to do, and possibly whom it wants to do it to. 

Before I get to that, here’s what Google told me:

• • “What to watch on [Streaming Service]”: Find trending movies or TV shows tailored to platforms you own.
  • “Fun things to type into Google”: Discover hidden interactive easter eggs like “do a barrel roll” or “askew”.
  • “Most interesting Wikipedia articles”: Dive down a fascinating rabbit hole of bizarre historical events and unique trivia.
  • “Top podcasts 2026”: Find a new audio series to listen to while working or relaxing. [1, 2]

• • “Events near me this weekend”: Instantly pull up local festivals, concerts, or markets happening right in your backyard.
  • “Best restaurants in [Your City]”: Look up top-rated dining spots, or specify a craving like “best tacos near me.”
  • “Weather forecast”: Get a quick glance at your local week ahead. [1, 2, 3]

• • “Easy 30-minute dinner recipes with [ingredient you have]”: Perfect for figuring out what to cook with whatever is left in your fridge.
  • “How to clean [specific item or fabric]”: Get quick, practical home care DIY tips.
  • “Beginner workout routine at home”: Find simple, no-equipment exercise plans.

• • Use quotation marks (e.g., "exact phrase") to find pages that use those exact words in that exact order.
  • Use a minus sign (e.g., jaguar -car) to exclude words you don’t want in your results.
  • Filter by file type (e.g., tax form filetype:pdf) to find downloadable documents directly. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

To help give you a more specific suggestion, what are you trying to do? Are you looking to kill some time, solve a specific problem, or plan an activity?
AI can make mistakes, so double-check responses

I was concerned about Google’s last question, “To help give you a more specific suggestion, what are you trying to do? Are you looking to kill some time, solve a specific problem, or plan an activity?” Is this all I might want to do? I wouldn’t have put kill time at the top of that list. What about learn about something or become a better person? And notice the final sentence, AI can make mistakes, so double-check responses. And how are we supposed to do that?

So I played along. I typed:

None of the above. I want to find out how to be a better person.

And I was told in a lot of bold type:

None of the above. I want to find out how to be a better person.

The answers are more refined and the categories are more specific, without any links to external texts. So I asked bluntly

Who am I and what do you know about me?

And Google lied to me:

I do not know your identity or have access to any personal information about you. As an AI, I operate on a strict privacy model. I do not have a memory of our past conversations across different sessions, and I do not know your name, age, location, or background unless you choose to share it with me.Right now, the only things I know about you are what you have shared in this specific conversation:

• You are searching for ways to become a better person.
• You are looking for a deeper or different approach than the standard advice or search terms I previously suggested.

If you would like to share what specific life experiences or goals brought you to this question, we can use that context to explore character growth or personal philosophies that resonate with you. What area of self-improvement is on your mind?

It lied because it answered my question differently once it identified me. It might well know my name and other attributes because it’s Google’s business model to know these things in order to serve ads. And it knows my general location from my computer’s IP address.

It reminds me of Eric Schmidt’s disingenuous claim that users can escape surveillance by using incognito mode (private browser windows). Google’s erstwhile CEO said: “If you’re concerned, for whatever reason, you do not wish to be tracked by federal and state authorities, my strong recommendation is to use incognito mode, and that’s what people do” (quoted from my 2018 post The Net’s Good Old Boys 3.)

Maybe I should ask the bot whether what Schmidt said is true.

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*I was prompted to write this by a discussion on On Point Radio today. Most of what they talked about regards the impact of Google’s answer machine on users, web sites, and the Internet itself. It’s worth a listen or a read.

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