This is such a huge problem: I'm googling a quotation to find a page number, and the AI overview confidently produces total nonsense that would mislead students and others. (This is of course a quotation from noted Jung distiller China Miéville speaking to the subject of "Marxism and Fantasy.")

What is going on in the world?

You have to admire just the complete confidence of large language models in themselves.

I think I'm teaching Chaucer's Merchant's Tale for the first time since having seen The VVitch, and now I can't help but visualize the character who determines to "live ful deliciously" as follows:

I still cannot fathom why search engines have intentionally ruined their product like this.