Whatever it is, nobody made them do it and no amount of UX would suggest to me people wanted it.

I think what happened to Google is that enough people with more sense left and enough people who have more money than sense tried to make even more money but .. it's senseless.

An infuriating line from a linked BBC page among the article sources:

> "The examples we've seen are generally very uncommon queries [...]" [Google] said in a statement.

There is an radically sinister side in a sneaking idea that regards "providing some output" better than "providing good output".