[SATIRE]

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Google announced a new test on Tuesday for its news pages. The feature uses AI to summarize articles so users do not have to click on them. The company calls this a “time-saving tool.”

The goal is to keep users safe inside Google. “We found that leaving our site is scary for people,” said Kevin O’Malley, VP of Traffic Containment. “When you click a link, you go somewhere else. That takes seconds. It requires effort. We want to save users from the heavy burden of visiting the actual source of the information.”

Publishers worry this will kill their traffic. Google says this is actually a favor. “We are helping websites save money,” explained Linda Gupta, Director of Publisher Partnerships. “If nobody visits their site, their server bills go down to zero. We are handling the heavy lifting of reading their content and selling ads against it. They can focus on writing news for no one.”

The AI summaries are designed to be “good enough.” They give you the main point without the nuance. Google admits this might hurt deep reading. However, they note that most users only read headlines anyway. “We are just automating the apathy,” O’Malley added. “Now you can feel informed without the hassle of actually learning anything.”

At press time, Google announced a new Premium tier for publishers. For $5,000 a month, the AI will include a “Read More” link at the very bottom of the summary in light gray text.

Inspired by Google is testing AI-powered article overviews on select publications’ Google News pages.