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We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis

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Re: We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis

#81

Post by ocdtrekkie »

bagacrap wrote: post #74
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, when they started ads, they were not inline with the search results, and in brightly highlighted boxes. So it was easy to say, you know, we have ads, but they don't affect search results. Today they say the same thing, but nontechnical users can no longer distinguish ads from their organic search results.

Non-technical users can't read the bolded "Ad" in the top left? Ok, it's more subtle than before but it doesn't prey on the less sophisticated among us.

For one, that Ad logo spent about two years being yellow-on-white, so people without well-tuned contrast monitors couldn't see it at all.

Last year they made a change that made them so indistinguishable to the untrained eye that even Google rolled them back: https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/23/squint-and-youll-click-it/ https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/24/google-will-iterate-the-desi...

But no, generally, they don't notice that. Studies have been done demonstrating how few users can tell the difference between an ad and a search result. In one study, half of respondents "didn't spot" ads in Google search results at all: https://www.123-reg.co.uk/blog/seo-2/how-google-is-profiting...

That study was in 2013, when Ads were much more obvious in search results than they are today. By 2018, the statistic of people who couldn't identify search ads on Google was up closer to two-thirds: https://marketingtechnews.net/news/2018/sep/06/two-thirds-pe...

Re: We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis

#82

Post by cainxinth »

bagacrap wrote: post #74
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, when they started ads, they were not inline with the search results, and in brightly highlighted boxes. So it was easy to say, you know, we have ads, but they don't affect search results. Today they say the same thing, but nontechnical users can no longer distinguish ads from their organic search results.

Non-technical users can't read the bolded "Ad" in the top left? Ok, it's more subtle than before but it doesn't prey on the less sophisticated among us.

It sounds crazy, but they really can’t. Seriously, have you ever been over a non tech person’s shoulder while they are googling? They click the first thing they see with zero scrutiny.

Re: We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis

#83

Post by artembugara »

Here's a real feedback on metadata tags from someone who's been building "online-published articles index" for ~13 months [0].

So, we talk about news websites for whom it is crucial to be well-indexed.

Talking about non-US news websites:

1. Not so many news websites even have a sitemap

2. LD+JSON meta tags are not so common either

3. OG metadata can be simply wrong

4. For many websites it's impossible to detect which timezone it's published time is

5. Publish time can be literally "5 hours ago" without a timestamp/date tag. Like no other clue on when it's been published

Given all that, until situation changes, I think Google has a real advantage as they can use expensive AI to parse the unstructured content.

So yeah, when Google says "forget metatags" they know something. Metatags will simplify lots of other search engines.

There're new "search engine" startup I hear about every week.

[0] https://newscatcherapi.com/

Re: We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis

#84

Post by megamix »

hajile wrote: post #3

The commercial opinion bit is incredibly annoying. Ask for an opinion and you’ll get 5 pages of custom built “review” sites that offer nothing useful besides copious ads and paid click-through to Amazon. Even when Google knows where I go with my searches, they still refuse to show those sites for anything that might have commercial interest. So much for customized search. I get tired of being the product. Can we get…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20652151

:)

subscription service on the rise!

Re: We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis

#85

Post by ocdtrekkie »

cainxinth wrote: post #82
bagacrap wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-technical users can't read the bolded "Ad" in the top left? Ok, it's more subtle than before but it doesn't prey on the less sophisticated among us.

It sounds crazy, but they really can’t. Seriously, have you ever been over a non tech person’s shoulder while they are googling? They click the first thing they see with zero scrutiny.

I have an incredible number of personal anecdotes to offer about not just watching ordinary users click on ads, but also Google Ads being the primary source for most scams and malware on the Internet, that Google pushes to the top of their results for money. (When you have helped dozens of seniors taken advantage of by scammers that Google profited off of, it's hard to be particularly amicable about the company and their business practices.)

However, I went with showing studies because unfortunately, our personal real world experiences rarely win online arguments. ;)

Re: We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis

#86

Post by jacobolus »

cblconfederate wrote: post #37

The problem is that google created a negative feedback loop with the web. People have a tangible interest to game google, which worsens the quality of their AI datasets, which makes their AI suggestions terrible. There was the expectation that google's AI suggestions and info boxes would improve over time, but i 've noticed them getting worse and consider them a permanently broken gimmick now. They probably have the…

> google created a negative feedback loop with the web

Friendly note: this may be a "negative" (i.e. bad) effect, but it is not a negative feedback loop. A negative feedback loop is a part of a system that self-corrects back toward a stable position. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_feedback

Re: We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis

#87

Post by [deleted] »

fouc wrote: post #33
virgilp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My car already does a pretty good job of showing the speed limits (and it's definitely based on computer vision/ works offline and in places where map metadata is poor). And it doesn't have "self driving", just a limited "pilot assist". Not sure why reading road signs is used as and example of "extremely hard thing to do" - there are other way harder things that cars can't currently do. E.g. figuring out the right sp…

Actually I think road speeds for various curves are pretty standardized, so it shouldn't be that hard for the car to estimate the correct speed based on the curve.

[deleted]

Re: We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis

#88

Post by zpeti »

cblconfederate wrote: post #37

The problem is that google created a negative feedback loop with the web. People have a tangible interest to game google, which worsens the quality of their AI datasets, which makes their AI suggestions terrible. There was the expectation that google's AI suggestions and info boxes would improve over time, but i 've noticed them getting worse and consider them a permanently broken gimmick now. They probably have the…

Sometimes I have this scary thought that paid search results are actually inherently better than organic ones, because when you spend money you do need to be relevant to the query and serve up a decent result.

When it comes to organic, everything is free, so you try whatever hacks the algorithms, from keyword stuffed content to link spam etc.

So as time goes on organic search results will actually get worse and worse, and paid will get better/stay the same.

It might not actually be google who is preferring paid search results, it's just inevitable from how the system is set up.

Re: We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis

#89

Post by sireat »

svachalek wrote: post #58
devoutsalsa wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which would one? 1. One search engine w/ hundreds of thousands of employeers & bajillions in revenue 2. One search engine w/ like 3 people & a chonky Patreon account

That’s a bit of a false dichotomy though. Although the original AdWords also made them an adverting based search engine, it made them massively profitable without violating anyone’s privacy. It was the need to make even more billions that led them down the slippery slope of mass surveillance that makes everyone uneasy now.

Original AdWords in early 200Xs were quite a breath of fresh air compared to other type of advertising on the net.

The ads seemed relevant. I actually clicked on them with a sense of purpose!

At the time AdWords truly seemed how advertising should be done ethically with an iron wall between search and advertising.

That wall started crumbling pretty quickly by mid 200Xs.

Maybe the wall was never there?

Re: We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis

#90

Post by marcosdumay »

tjr225 wrote: post #68
cblconfederate wrote: post #37

The problem is that google created a negative feedback loop with the web. People have a tangible interest to game google, which worsens the quality of their AI datasets, which makes their AI suggestions terrible. There was the expectation that google's AI suggestions and info boxes would improve over time, but i 've noticed them getting worse and consider them a permanently broken gimmick now. They probably have the…

> Voice recognition on the other hand keeps getting better because there's no tangible benefit for someone to game it. Knock on wood! It is creepy to imagine a world where computers have the upper hand on vocal inputs but I already sometimes feel this way with text and autocorrect...

> but I already sometimes feel this way with text and autocorrect...

Just disable autocorrect. The amount of times where people communicate and a typo is a critical problem is aproximateley 0, you can manually correct them at those times.

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