It used to feel like magic. Now it can feel like a set of cheap tricks. Is the problem with Google — or with us? And is Google Search finally facing a real rival, in the form of A.I.-powered “answer engines”? 

SOURCES:Marissa Mayer, co-founder of Sunshine; former C.E.O. of Yahoo! and vice president at Google.Ryan McDevitt; professor of economics at Duke University.Tim Hwang, media researcher and author; former Google employee.Elizabeth Reid, vice president of Search at Google.Aravind Srinivas, C.E.O. and co-founder of Perplexity.Jeremy Stoppelman, C.E.O. and co-founder of Yelp. 

RESOURCES:“A Fraudster Who Just Can’t Seem to Stop … Selling Eyeglasses,” by David Segal (The New York Times, 2022).Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet, by Tim Hwang (2020).“Complaint: U.S. and Plaintiff States v. Google LLC,” by the U.S. Department of Justice (2020).“Fake Online Locksmiths May Be Out to Pick Your Pocket, Too,” by David Segal (The New York Times, 2016).“‘A’ Business by Any Other Name: Firm Name Choice as a Signal of Firm Quality,” by Ryan C. McDevitt (Journal of Political Economy, 2014).In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives, by Steven Levy (2011).“The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page (Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 1998). 

EXTRAS:“Is Dialysis a Test Case of Medicare for All?” by Freakonomics Radio (2021).“How Big is My Penis? (And Other Things We Ask Google),” by Freakonomics Radio (2017).