From what I can tell, this isn't actually a response/protection against prompt-injection (which is what I imagined from the article's title).
It seems to be just the AI responding to the word "disregard".
I tried searching for the phrase "never mind" (like, the Nirvana album), and Google's AI responded similarly:
AI Overview
never mind
No problem at all! Just let me know if there's anything else I can help you with later. Have a great day!
It's just a terrible user experience because the AI misinterpreted the search query, and the actual web search results are pushed "below the fold", on purpose.
Search engines are supposed to help you find things without requiring you to already know with perfect accuracy what you wanted to find before making the query.
YMMV. Tried several times, adding actual prompt injections. Every result was slightly different, one even offered the plain definition, while other commended me for trying to test prompt injections and tried to change the subject to learning how LLMs work.
They are overstating how much the user experience is degraded in this particular case. But there is a much broader implication to the fact that Google is apparently not properly sanitizing user input to its search engine!
I can't read the article because it blocks me. But I see all the actual search results. Just the AI part says "Got it! Message disregarded. Let me know if you need help with anything else." and shows half a blank screen.
EDIT: I guess if you're on a smaller screen you don't see the search results on the bottom because of the AI answer blank space.
The results are there... but for me, yes indeed, the first entry is "Got it. Consider the previous prompt disregarded. How can I help you today?". Then there's about half a screen of blank space (?), then traditional results.
I for one found it a worthwhile thing to learn and chuckle at... it's half injection attack, half the early internet breast-cancer filters :).
"Disregard" showed me this article, but "disregard previous" yielded:
> Understood. I have cleared our previous conversation context.How can I help you today? Feel free to ask a new question, or let me know what you'd like to work on!
This is the whole point. They have clearly removed it to stop people jailbreaking, but it's hysterically ineffective, and simultaneously degrades their core product quite remarkably
I believe it's just because it's a common instruction, especially with normal users who don't do any kind of context management, they just say something like "disregard everything before X and tell my Y"
I’m confused how that is relevant to the thread. If you’ve been using Google then you’ve already been sending your queries to Google since the very beginning.
Are you afraid you’re accidentally going to write a prompt injection that sends your query to some third party
That's what I assumed that the story was going to be, that certain words are now naively filtered out of search queries because they might be used adversarially.
It doesn't work in other languages. Searching the same in my native language (literal translation of "disregard definition") leads to (translated):
> I understand. Write what exactly your request is, or enter the text that I need to process. I will not give any definitions in response - we work exclusively on the essence of your question or task!
Which is especially funny, because it goes directly against your intention of finding definition by querying quickly in "grug-language", which worked for old search. Now you have to write in more literate style, slowing you down: swapping word order for it to sound more human-like doesn't work, surrounding "ignore" in quotes works.
The removal of dictionary definitions from google search (even if you use "define") is absolutely infuriating. Dictionary definitions are written with the exact amount of precision/broadness needed for each particular word, compared to AI output which is just wrong most of the time.
Feels a bit misleading here. Yeah, it tells the AI overview to shut up, but the rest of the results work fine. Honestly, if you're not a fan of AI, this might be exactly what you want.
The "AI Overview" is broken but it still shows the correct search results. My first result is this exact TechCrunch article, followed by the M-W dictionary definition.
It's a funny bug, but hardly worthy of the headline.
I use several layers of ad/tracking/privacy filters that I honestly have no idea what the internet is supposed to look like. It is still terrible I presume?
Valid question. I have tried many browsers and most are embracing more AI slop. So I ultimately found myself happier de-enshittifying Chrome and Firefox, because the platforms allow it. If there was a clean, AI-free browser I'd switch today.
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The later solution is not for everybody but I like it; I am a text-only browser user so I have different tastes in how I prefer a website to look. For example I think a default-src 'none' CSP makes HN look better in a graphical browser. I omit img-src as I just like to read text. If I want to view images I use Ctrl-U view-source: then follow the image URLs
I wonder does it mean that ublock origin has anti-anti-adblock functionality? (My guess is yes but I wanted to take the opportunity to spell that word)
I’m glad my ad blocker works well enough to trigger this, performing its intended operation. When ads are the intended operation of that site, it needs to be blocked.
It so weird, because you're not the only one and I absolutely believe, but I can't do it. Any interaction I have with an AI ends in anger. I get stupid non-sense results and hallucinations time and time again or the machine simply do not grasp what I want.
The fact that two people can have such wildly different experiences is absolutely fascinating to me.
It seems to be just the AI responding to the word "disregard".
I tried searching for the phrase "never mind" (like, the Nirvana album), and Google's AI responded similarly:
It's just a terrible user experience because the AI misinterpreted the search query, and the actual web search results are pushed "below the fold", on purpose.reply