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Google increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions

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

#101

Post by VonGallifrey »

tudelo wrote: post #70
VonGallifrey wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes we do things every day where trust is integral, but I do verify independently accordingly. This is relative to the importance of the thing off course. That is just common sense.

I accept googles answer when I ask for the weather. If google is wrong on this it mostly has no effect. So it is absolutely appropriate to accept this answer blindly.

I trust my doctor when I have a minor illness, but I did select my doctor carefully and I would get a second opinion if it is something serious.

Putting the same care into both of these things would either be dangerous or obsessive. It does terrify me that people here are suggesting that there are people who put less care into answering medical or safety related questions for themselves than I do reading a weather report for the day. It's crazy.

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

#102

Post by muzani »

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…

Unfortunately, people have extremely high trust of Google. People use Google to win arguments. People use Google as a replacement for text books. For cases like this, there shouldn't be a factual answer box. It would be really bad if people could just SEO Google into saying whatever 'truth' that's profitable.

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

#103

Post by ColanR »

astrodust wrote: post #98
ColanR wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be the copyright date of the book, combined with medical licensing requirements that doctors stay up-to-date in their field.

Just imagine if software engineers had the same certification requirements as, say, pilots. Or, hell, plumbers.

I want to say that would be fantastic, except that the software engineers might be pretty miserable.

Also, aren't there such certs already?

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

#104

Post by abiox »

jacksmith21006 wrote: post #13
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…

Saw that Peter Thiel is funding some guy in Missouri to go after Google.

out of curiosity, what service said he was "funding some guy"?

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

#105

Post by abiox »

Klathmon wrote: post #92
untog wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, my argument is "Google should not present results as if they are an absolute answer when they are not capable of knowing whether that is true". It's pretty simple: a list of search results does not imply certainty. Injecting a single "answer" does. As I mentioned elsewhere, it's as if they have decided that the "I'm feeling lucky" button should apply to everyone.

But is google even implying that the results are the absolute answer? If I search for "how tall is tom cruise" and it gives me a number. It doesn't say that number is an absolute answer, it doesn't say that it's verified, it just shows the number. I personally don't see that as any different than if it returned a few websites, all of which say the same thing when I go to them. In all cases it's "Google" giving me the…

in the case of unattributed information, i would think some edge cases risk lawsuits (libel or other things) or pr problems if the information is wrong.

imdb was sued for revealing a person's age; and while imdb won the case, a law in california was passed that dealt with the matter. what happens if google displays information about you that you feel is private (or some legal jurisdiction asserts is so)?

i noticed that "what should i do if bitten by a snake" does have attribution. however, it seems to me that the information is presented in a "this is the answer" way, ie as trustworthy and actionable... what happens if following whatever google suggests results in harm or death?

either way, i'm surprised google hasn't bothered to add couching language or some notional caveats. (even a "here's what we found:" seems reasonable distancing.)

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

#106

Post by abiox »

tintor wrote: post #59
jamiesonbecker wrote: post #56

A lot of these answers seem to be borne of algorithmic consensus of top-ranked sites. There are probably worse ways to go about it, but in many ways Google has to take sides on ideas or concepts that are still strongly debated. Consensus does not create or prove facts, even if it's a strong signal. There are certainly things that I strongly believe that you do not. Does that make my beliefs (or yours) any less valid…

"And, should Google be liable for those answers that are now coming from its site ..." This is why Google references the source when it gives you the answer.

"what is tom cruise's age" didn't reference a source when i checked.

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

#107

Post by maxerickson »

yathern wrote: post #42
maxerickson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

97% accuracy is abysmal for something you are presenting as "answers".

If there was someone I knew who I could ask a question, with a 97% chance they were correct, I'd consider them to be a phenomenon, and an extremely valuable resource. For some definition of correct, I'd be happy to be 60% accurate.

Yeah but what if you got to choose between 2 people that knew the answer 50% of the time but one of the them enjoyed making up answers when they didn't know and the other just told you they didn't know?

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

#108

Post by mousa »

k2xl wrote: post #91
jmknoll wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant text: "Google spokeswoman Susan Cadrecha said the company’s goal isn’t to do the thinking for users but “to help you find relevant information quickly and easily.” She added, “We encourage users to understand the full context by clicking through to the source.”" I sincerely hope no one is relying on Google to do the thinking for them.

I sincerely hope no one is either - but why should Google even pretend to know the answer to something? How is the average, non-technical person supposed to assume that Google won't give an accurate answer to a medical question?

Why shouldn't they? I personally like the answers and use them often if I'm trying to find a fact, like when someone famous was born. If someone is going to blindly trust Google without verifying and google doesn't try to answer, they'll probably just trust whatever site is listed first anyways...

I see no harm in Google guessing.

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

#109

Post by Kurtz79 »

jgalt212 wrote: post #85
Kurtz79 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A parser (assuming you are talking about a programming language parser) has the luxury of having highly structured and deterministic inputs, and to be able to refuse giving an "answer" if they are not.

> highly structured and deterministic inputs not all parsers deal with such inputs, and parsers that don't can and often do produce multiple interpretations of the input data.

Tell me of some parsers that do not deal with deterministic inputs and have 100% accuracy, then.

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

#110

Post by _ea1k »

untog wrote: post #79
_ea1k wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a question with a really obvious answer. Because it is useful, makes users happy, and generates revenue. There really isn't another useful standard to apply here.

> There really isn't another useful standard to apply here. ...accuracy?

Good luck turning that into an objective standard for a search engine.
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