We Swear it Works: The Curious Case of Cursing Away AI

It's a very modern problem to have – you ask your search engine a simple question, but instead of providing you with the regular list of results, it pops up an AI-generated answer that you just don't trust – not because of your inherit mistrust of AI, but because in its current state it's prone to give you silly, factually wrong answers. 
For example:

_{via Gizmodo}

What makes it even more frustrating is that when you ask Google how to disable its AI answers, you get a generic response (from the AI itself) saying there is no way to do it at this time.

Well, frustrated users have discovered a workaround: if you are rude to Google's AI and you curse at it – for example, type "Just give me the f***ing answers!" – it actually makes the AI go away (perhaps to cry in the corner of the internet), and you get the links you wanted. This "curse to disable" trick has been making the rounds on social media and even holds up in our own testing. It's found that when search queries include various curse word adjectives, the AI Overviews reliably vanish. However, milder adjectives like "dumb" or "lousy" don't have the same effect, suggesting that Google's Gemini AI system is hardwired to shy away from explicit language.

_{Via Tumbler}

Other, more technical methods have emerged as alternatives to cursing, such as appending "&udm=14" to your URL or even adding "-ai" to the end of your query. While these methods also clear away the intrusive AI Overviews, for many users, the catharsis of a well-placed expletive remains oddly satisfying. In any case, the popularity of this workaround underscores just how many users are still deeply frustrated by a feature that often delivers misleading or downright incorrect answers when all they really want are the straightforward links.