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Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

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Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#191

Post by hammyhavoc »

tambourine_man wrote: post #152
spullara wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPT-3 prompt: I really love the vibe of Koh Lanta in Thailand. It has tourist amenities without really being touristy. I find it charming, slow and cheap. Is there a place in Croatia like it? Completion: There is no exact place in Croatia that has the same vibe as Koh Lanta in Thailand. However, there are places in Croatia that have a similar charm and slower pace. These places include Hvar Island, Korcula Island, an…

GPT-3 and DALL-E scare me. This is too good. I wonder how long it will take before we have a GPT-3 bot commenting here on HN

I get sent GPT-3 blogspam as "guest posts" from wannabe "contributors" every day, and I can say that the moment you expect GPT-3 to write anything remotely technical, it turns to shit. Simultaneously, anything people have written by GPT-3 is frequently full of algorithmically detectable plagiarism.

Needless to say, all of these people get told to fuck off and get a job.

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#192

Post by [deleted] »

kccqzy wrote: post #154
drivebycomment wrote: post #4

This is a clear demonstration of the user's expectation of search having exceeded what's possible today. From the article: > Lets look at some examples. One of my favorite places in the world is Koh Lanta, Thailand. When traveling, I’m always on the lookout for places that give off the Koh Lanta vibe. What does that mean? Hard to say, exactly, but having tourist amenities without being touristy. Charming, slow, cheap…

And HN just destroyed this search. When I tried the same search, HN is on the front page now.

[deleted]

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#193

Post by JacobThreeThree »

jxramos wrote: post #14
drivebycomment wrote: post #4

This is a clear demonstration of the user's expectation of search having exceeded what's possible today. From the article: > Lets look at some examples. One of my favorite places in the world is Koh Lanta, Thailand. When traveling, I’m always on the lookout for places that give off the Koh Lanta vibe. What does that mean? Hard to say, exactly, but having tourist amenities without being touristy. Charming, slow, cheap…

So true. People see sci-fi representations of technology in movies and TV shows and extrapolate that to the real world never realizing that satisfying the prerequisites for any technology to become a reality is easier said than done. It’s always handwavvy too: the computer will figure it out. Let the computer do it.

People want their entire worldview spoonfed to them.

It sounds like this person wants to have a philosophical discussion with a friend about this type of subjective question rather than simply receive a factual search engine response.

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#194

Post by iakh »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #189
droidist2 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For one I have a sort of budget for how much javascript I will tolerate. Some is fine, like your standard wordpress config probably will fly, but not much more. What about sites built with React, etc? Like would you be filtering out cool things like Ableton's "Learning Synths"[1] or do you mostly mean third party scripts? [1] https://learningsynths.ableton.com

Yeah, those sited go out the window entirely. It's a search engine for documents, not applications.

Why should it matter if a website is marked up on the server side or client side to a search engine?

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#195

Post by bagacrap »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #29
warning26 wrote: post #22

There's a lot of Google hate on HN, and much of it is deserved, but I think this particular trend of blaming Google for the prevalence of useless clickbait articles is a bit much. The real answer to this question is that walled-garden social media took over everything. The much-pined-for "Old Google" worked because people used to actually create content on their own sites, and not just post it on walled garden monoli…

I disagree. The fact that Google has such a power over the shape of web traffic, along with a few other websites, absolutely re-shapes the Internet to fit whatever its standards make a website rank well. It's in many ways almost exactly the same process as natural selection. Whatever works gets traffic and gets copied by other websites, whatever doesn't fades away.

I think the analogy to natural selection is apt. So is it really Google's fault? Seems like a consequence of a fitness function. And even if there were 4 competitive search engines in the world, each spammy site would optimize for one (or would even have 4 versions that each optimized for a single search engine).

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#196

Post by RajT88 »

cma wrote: post #70
RajT88 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And I can prove it to you. Settings > Sync and Google Services > Other Google Services > Make Searches and Browsing Better. Underneath the setting it explains, "Send URLs of pages you visit to Google".

we need to expand wiretapping laws to this stuff, the disclosure should be upfront and default off

Indeed. When I discovered this setting existed, and was enabled on all my devices, it made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

I think Today is the day I try moving back to Firefox again. I hope it's gotten snappier.

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#197

Post by thayne »

> None of this is hard to do. It just requires someone to get started.

I'm not an expert in this area but that seems very optimistic. Creating an algorithm that gives better quality results than google for certain kinds of queries probably isn't too difficult. But scaling it up to indexing the entire web, continuously, would require a LOT of resources.

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#198

Post by tigerlily »

tigerlily wrote: post #55
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, I built sort of exactly this: https://search.marginalia.nu/ What's the elevator pitch? What do you actually do that is special? From the about section: > This is an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. > The software for this search engine is all custom-…

I know it’s of low value to ask, but who really gives a shit?

Sigh, I guess I should’ve clarified I meant “who cares whether or not there’s an elevator pitch, this is just something that someone thought we all needed and would be cool to build”.

FWIW I think it is cool and much needed.

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#199

Post by beej71 »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #12
bluGill wrote: post #9

I miss yahoo of 1996 when they were a table of contents. Practically unmaintainable which is why they gave up, but it was nice to follow a few links and find something interesting on weird subjects. No search at all in those days, but it was better for finding things.

Like this: https://dmoz-odp.org/

Is this still active? Seems like a great idea, but the page says it's an archive and the search doesn't work. :(

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#200

Post by jefftk »

spullara wrote: post #123
drivebycomment wrote: post #4

This is a clear demonstration of the user's expectation of search having exceeded what's possible today. From the article: > Lets look at some examples. One of my favorite places in the world is Koh Lanta, Thailand. When traveling, I’m always on the lookout for places that give off the Koh Lanta vibe. What does that mean? Hard to say, exactly, but having tourist amenities without being touristy. Charming, slow, cheap…

GPT-3 prompt: I really love the vibe of Koh Lanta in Thailand. It has tourist amenities without really being touristy. I find it charming, slow and cheap. Is there a place in Croatia like it? Completion: There is no exact place in Croatia that has the same vibe as Koh Lanta in Thailand. However, there are places in Croatia that have a similar charm and slower pace. These places include Hvar Island, Korcula Island, an…

Can anyone familiar with Croatia say whether GPT-3 is reasonable here? It's great at saying plausible things, but it will freely make things up if it doesn't know.
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