DuckDuckGo is making it easier to combat some of the misuse of artificial intelligence that has flooded the internet in recent months. This week, the company introduced a new filter to remove AI-generated images from search results. The next time you use the browser, you’ll see a new drop-down menu called “AI Images”. In it, you can specify whether or not you want to see AI-enhanced content.
The filter relies on manually managed open source block lists maintained by uBlockOrigin and other sites. According to DuckDuckGo, the filter won’t catch every image created by artificial intelligence on the Internet, but it will significantly reduce the number of such images you see. The company says it is working on additional filters.
You may notice that the example that DuckDuckGo uses to demonstrate the feature in the GIF it provides includes a search for images of a “peacock”. This is no coincidence. People first started noticing how full of artificial intelligence errors Google’s search results were about a year ago, and one of the worst examples was any queries related to bright birds. Since then, Google has remedied the situation somewhat, but AI errors in search results remain a problem on the platform. So it’s great to see that DuckDuckGo has come up with a simple but effective solution to this problem.
