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Google increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions

wsj.com

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Re: Google increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions

#61

Post by pjc50 »

dTal wrote: post #28
muzani wrote: post #20

My favorite example is "are lemons acidic?" It's full of "alkaline diet" sites trying to SEO itself into convincing people that lemons are good for you because they're an alkaline. It's become a little less inaccurate over the years but is still dodgy. Then again the answers are so consistent and I'm so used to trusting the first page of Google that I'm almost convinced that lemons alkalinize your body.

I'm not even sure Google's behaviour is wrong in this instance. The kind of person who would google something as obvious as that is probably actually more interested in the woo-answer, and I don't neccesarily think it's Google's job to be the woo-police (as appealing as that sounds, it's risky unless they can do a 100% accurate job). To illustrate with another example, if I ask Google where the government is hiding t…

"2 Balances pH: Lemons are an incredibly alkaline food, believe it or not. Yes, they are acidic on their own, but inside our bodies they're alkaline (the citric acid does not create acidity in the body once metabolized"

That's what I get in the answer box. Wow.

I think it absolutely is Google's job to be the woo police in the privileged answer box. They can just choose not to display it for answers they're not confident in owning and leave you with the general search results.

It probably needs to be a whitelist. Most of the time it's wikipedia anyway (a whole other can of worms, but at least it won't tell you that lemons are alkaline or feed your conspiracy theories)

Re: Google increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions

#62

Post by jdietrich »

untog wrote: post #32
dontnotice wrote: post #9

Halfway down that piece: A study this year by Stone Temple, a prominent analyst of the industry, showed Google’s search engine answered 74.3% of 5,000 questions, and on those answers it had a 97.4% accuracy rate. Both percentages are higher than services from Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Alternative WSJ: Let's bury that tidbit under the fold while we nitpick and highlight edge cases in a constantly…

That's absolutely the wrong way to go about looking at it. Not all facts are of equal importance. 97 correct facts about, say, gardening, and three incorrect facts about first aid is not a successful system. If Google is presenting the tool as a canonical source of truth, it needs to be right 100% of the time. In fact, being right 97.4% of the time is worse in many ways, as it lulls people into a false sense of secur…

>If Google is presenting the tool as a canonical source of truth, it needs to be right 100% of the time.

Should we burn all the dictionaries and encyclopaedias because they aren't perfectly accurate? Textbooks don't have a black-box warning on the front page saying "The accuracy of this book cannot be guaranteed. Please verify any facts stated before storing them in your long-term memory or using them for any purpose"?

"Truth" is an inherently messy concept. The very best curated sources and human experts are frequently fallible. If you assume that Google (or any other source) is infallibly accurate, then the problem lies with your education, not the source.

Re: Google increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions

#63

Post by ceejayoz »

dogruck wrote: post #24
anon1385 wrote: post #3

I'm generally very critical of Google, especially the search results page, but it's important to remember the background context to this article: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/16/rupert-murdoch... >Rupert Murdoch say News Corp is not looking to expand its newspaper empire, conceding digital advertising “has been tremendously damaging to print” and some of his papers were struggling. Over the next few yea…

You are unjustifiably attacking conservative politics. First, before he got busted for grabbing women, liberal Senator Al Franken was rallying the troops to against Google and FB: https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/09/al-franken-facebook-goog... Second, liberal rags like the New York Times are scrutinizing the tech industry. Here’s a recent article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/opinion/academia-tech-alg...

> Second, liberal rags like the New York Times are scrutinizing the tech industry.

Is your argument that news organizations should not scrutinize an entire powerful industry?

Re: Google increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions

#64

Post by devy »

dontnotice wrote: post #9

Halfway down that piece: A study this year by Stone Temple, a prominent analyst of the industry, showed Google’s search engine answered 74.3% of 5,000 questions, and on those answers it had a 97.4% accuracy rate. Both percentages are higher than services from Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Alternative WSJ: Let's bury that tidbit under the fold while we nitpick and highlight edge cases in a constantly…

Philosophically speaking, assuming there is always a single answer for any question and promoting a specific SINGLE answer for them is not only inaccurate and misleading, sometime it's WRONG! The world is complex, many questions will and should have multiple answers depending how you look at it.

Re: Google increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions

#65

Post by untog »

jdietrich wrote: post #62
untog wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's absolutely the wrong way to go about looking at it. Not all facts are of equal importance. 97 correct facts about, say, gardening, and three incorrect facts about first aid is not a successful system. If Google is presenting the tool as a canonical source of truth, it needs to be right 100% of the time. In fact, being right 97.4% of the time is worse in many ways, as it lulls people into a false sense of secur…

>If Google is presenting the tool as a canonical source of truth, it needs to be right 100% of the time. Should we burn all the dictionaries and encyclopaedias because they aren't perfectly accurate? Textbooks don't have a black-box warning on the front page saying "The accuracy of this book cannot be guaranteed. Please verify any facts stated before storing them in your long-term memory or using them for any purpose…

Google is not an encyclopedia or a dictionary, though. Encyclopedias are editorially curated products where each entry is researched and chosen very deliberately. The answers Google provides are picked by an algorithm and have nowhere near the level of oversight that dictionaries and encyclopedias do.

> "Truth" is an inherently messy concept. The very best curated sources and human experts are frequently fallible.

Here, we can agree. My objection is to Google presenting their tool as if it does provide one true answer to your question.

"The problem lies in your education" is a fantastic way of absolving responsibility. What if people's education about tech is in fact exactly the problem? Do we shrug our shoulders and say "well, they should all know better" or do we proactively try to make the situation better?

Re: Google increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions

#66

Post by cosinetau »

Is it possible this is the first iteration of an initiative getting more complete, nuanced answers?

As software developers, we talk about small cycles and iterations first that drive toward a working product, not a singular giant leap toward a goal. This would be consistent with that pattern.

Re: Google increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions

#68

Post by tgb »

pjc50 wrote: post #61
dTal wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure Google's behaviour is wrong in this instance. The kind of person who would google something as obvious as that is probably actually more interested in the woo-answer, and I don't neccesarily think it's Google's job to be the woo-police (as appealing as that sounds, it's risky unless they can do a 100% accurate job). To illustrate with another example, if I ask Google where the government is hiding t…

"2 Balances pH: Lemons are an incredibly alkaline food, believe it or not. Yes, they are acidic on their own, but inside our bodies they're alkaline (the citric acid does not create acidity in the body once metabolized" That's what I get in the answer box. Wow. I think it absolutely is Google's job to be the woo police in the privileged answer box . They can just choose not to display it for answers they're not confi…

It looks like that's correct though, as supported by the first google hit [1] for that subject, which in fact is arguing the stupidity of the alkaline diet. It's also supported by the table in this paper [2]. The only catch being that your kidneys eliminate the extra alkaline products in your urine so it has no effect on most of your body.

[1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lemon-juice-acidic-or-a... [2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002822395...

Re: Google increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions

#69

Post by tudelo »

SloopJon wrote: post #52

After the Vox music player changed from freeware to freemium, I searched for something like "best free flac player mac 2017". It took me a moment to realize that the featured result was one vendor's self-serving comparison with competitors. I'm prepared for half of the results to a query like that to be littered with affiliate links, but I wasn't expecting a featured result like that.

That for me is the largest downside to google (or other search engines, really). It's impossible to get objective information on products unless you know a reviewer who is objective in the given domain...

Re: Google increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions

#70

Post by tudelo »

VonGallifrey wrote: post #48
k2xl wrote: post #45

With my Google Home, I often ask it, "Can my dog eat X" and it'll answer usually from the single answer from Google. While Google Home usually says the source, "According to WebMD..." or "According to ..." it would be horrible if it gave the wrong answer - saying something was safe to eat but it really wasn't. I hope they take extra precaution with answers related to medicine/safety.

I personally would hope that you take extra precaution with answers related to medicine/safety. Why would you trust google with something like this? If you ask Google "Can my dog eat X" and blindly trust the answer then it is your fault and not google's if your dog gets sick. Google isn't responsible for your dog, you are!

Why would you trust anything? Not to go to the extreme, but we do things every day where trust is integral, and what we trust is not something we verify independently. Or maybe you are different.
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