Artificial intelligence has made it super easy to create realistic images, and a lot of people absolutely hate it! While AI-generated content can be useful in some situations, they are not always helpful when you're searching for authentic photos, artwork, products, or news images. A lot of people find them repulsive and unethical as well, so to improve search quality, DuckDuckGo has added a feature that helps filter out AI-generated content from image search results.
Takeaways:
- Can you hide AI-generated images in search results?
- Is there a way to hide AI Slop in search results?
Table of Contents
Why Hide AI-Generated Images?
If you are reading this, I doubt that I need to explain why you might want to hide AI-Generated images, as you are clearly as sick of seeing them as I am. But for the sake of it, here are a few of the most common reasons people want to get rid of AI images in search results.
- Researching real places, people, or events
- Looking for product photos
- Searching for reference images
- Verifying visual information
- Reducing clutter in image search results
DuckDuckGo's filter adds a simple way to reduce how much AI image slop you get in search results. Sadly, I don't know how long this will work as AI slop images are getting harder and harder to detect. But for now, it works reasonably well.
How to Hide AI-Generated Images in DuckDuckGo
Follow these steps to adjust your image search settings. There are a couple of different ways to get here, but this is the easiest method.
- Go to the DuckDuckGo search engine and search for something (anything).
- After making a search, change to the Images tab to view image results that pop up.
- Near the top of the page, to the right of the search area, there is a tiny Settings icon.
- Click this icon, then click Manage near the bottom next to the AI Features tab.
- Within the AI Features filter options, flip the toggle next to: Hide AI-Generated Images to On.
- Then click Save & Exit.
Once enabled, DuckDuckGo will attempt to reduce or remove AI-generated visuals from your image search results. The change takes effect immediately, and for now, it does a fairly good job of getting rid of AI SLOP Images.
Note: You can also disable the DuckDuckGO AI Search assistant from here as well.
What Happens After You Enable the Filter?
After activating the filter, DuckDuckGo uses available signals and metadata to identify AI-generated images and limit their visibility in search results. If you are using the DuckDuckGO browser, you can make the same changes from the main Settings icon. The Interface is the same.
The Filter Is Not Perfect
No filtering system can identify every AI-generated image with complete accuracy. Some AI-created content may still appear, while some legitimate images could occasionally be filtered. But the filter does a decent job of getting rid of most of the garbage content. Now we just need a filter that can do the same for actual search results and web pages that use AI to generate the bulk of their content. I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of reading the same sounding text walls everywhere I go...
