Mojeek is Not an Answer Engine
Almost all companies in search are rushing to embed AI answers into search results pages. Google has rolled out AI Overviews. Microsoft has fused Bing with CoPilot. And others are moving quickly in the same direction.
The intent is clear. Instead of connecting you to the web, these so-called search engines are keeping you away from it.
From Exploration to Compression
Search has always been about discovery. You type a query, scan results, and make your own judgement. It is an active process, one which rewards curiosity and levels out power.
AI answer engines move in the opposite direction. They collapse a multitude of sources into a single generated passage, delivered with limited accountability. What was once exploration becomes passive consumption.
As we wrote two years ago, explaining the dangers of generative AI, this trend risks suffocating the independent sites, blogs, forums, and communities that make the web worth using in the first place.
Who Loses Out?
This shift has consequences far beyond convenience.
- Diversity. AI summaries replace hyperlinks with consensus opinion and generalised output. The web becomes less interesting and the big online brands gain.
- Publishers and creators. Independent research shows users are less likely to click through when AI overviews are present. That means fewer visits for the very people who sustain the web.
- Trust. AI compresses information without taking reponsibility for conseqences. It gets harder to see the human reasoning behind content, and to weigh different perspectives.
- Accuracy. Large language models inevitably hallucinate. The consequent dangers are then inflated because they produce very plausible text.
The story here is not new. As we noted in our piece on “one model to rule them all”, the industry is sliding towards monoculture. One where a handful of companies shape how billions reach information.
Today this is all taking place with a capital fuelled land-grab. Tomorrow they will be monetising your attention in every way they can.
Our Position
We will not follow this path.
We will not replace search results with AI-generated answers.
AI can be useful as a tool that supports search engine experiences . It can help you find the mst relevant hyperlinks, and be used to improve semantic matching. But its role should be to support search, not to supplant it.
At Mojeek we use AI (machine leaning) where it makes sense. But our role is to connect you with the web, not to intermediate it. To respect your agency, not constrain it. To protect your privacy, not profile you. To help you discover, not influence you.
Why This Matters
The future of the web depends on people and those that support it. It depends on sustaining the sites and communities that keep knowledge alive.
As we argued when asking whether the age of fair use is over, this is ultimately a question of who benefits, who controls, and who pays the price. AI compresses and represses. Search spreads knowledge and values diversity.
Our commitment is simple: search should remain a tool for exploration. We will continue to build for those who value curiosity, independence, and choice.
