So a couple of days ago Yahoo announced their new Yahoo! Search Assist feature. It’s intended to help people find information faster, which, I think, is a noble goal in this information heavy and attention poor world.

However, I have to say, I was a bit taken back when I tried it out for the first time. I did a search for “jesus” a few moments ago and got this result:

I’m not a big Bill O’Reilly fan myself. However, I am offended that a recommendation taking the Lord’s name in vain is ranking so high.

Of course, any automated system—especially one as large as a Yahoo’s recommendation system—is going to have glitches. Even biases: Check out this post announcing the new Techmeme Leaderboard, which is another popular automated system.

And as a programmer by trade, I can’t say I’m surprised. Systems like this are hard to get right. Nor do I believe for a second Yahoo is intentionally trying to offend me.

So I guess I’m wondering: in this world of automation, what’s the proper Christian response to this sort of situation? Grin and bear it? Ask Yahoo to look into this? Any thoughts?