Searching for Peace
First online: 16/12/2025
Ricardo Baeza-Yates, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden; Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain; and University of Chile [former VP of Research for Yahoo! Labs, leading teams in United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America]
Contact: linkedin.com/in/ricardobaezayates
(https://levocidisophia.it/2025/12/10/editoriale-8/)
(https://doi.org/10.14672/VDS20256ED22)
Here the 6th number of the journal.
Yes — search engines can help make the world more peaceful, though they are not a magic solution by themselves. Their impact depends on how they are designed, used, and governed. In fact, they should be an intrinsic component of what is known as Peace Tech.
To truly support peace, search engines need to move beyond finding information to shaping the world with it. This requires a fundamental shift in how search engines currently work. Right now, most search engines are designed to maximize relevance and engagement, many times amplifying conspiracy theories, creating echo chambers through personalization, and being gamed by those spreading extremist content. To use them for peace, we would need to thoughtfully redesign them to maximize understanding and consensus, while being transparent, responsible, and governed with the public good in mind.
This new search engine would need a ranking algorithm that bridges differences instead of fueling polarization, by breaking the filter bubbles of users, showing them multiple perspectives, adding serendipity, and even intervening by showing content opposed to extremist views. In other words, search engines can increase understanding across cultures by improving access to reliable information and empowering people with knowledge. At the same time, they can counter misinformation and propaganda, reducing extremist content, promoting media literacy, and supporting early warning and crisis response. Indeed, search data is by themselves an early warning system as well as a historical memory for accountability. We can even search in the future! (a proof of concept that I published in 2005).
Why don’t we have this type of search engine?
Its main challenge is the business model, as sadly peace sells less than conflict. Another challenge is that people are now using large language models to search, without understanding that “predicted information”, does not matter how well it is written, it is not always the same as the truth. Can we overcome these challenges? I don’t know, but a search engine that allows us to search for peace is certainly worth it, and we can dream about it in the next pages.