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AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

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Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#121

Post by Julesman »

gukov wrote: post #22

The way I see it: - Today's search engines will give you links to millions of documents - ChatGPT, if asked correctly, will instead generate one perfect document based on millions of the documents To me, that's a clear evolution of the search engine, especially with all the SEO & ad spam that's plaguing Google and others currently. I wasn't ready to pay a monthly fee for an ad-free Google. I am ready to pay for somet…

Entirely agree. I find this article a bit premature in it's confidence. And it seems to counter the one thing everyone who uses it is saying, which is that getting one best answer (which you can confirm as necessary) by software that has some sense of what your are asking for is just faster.

As in, it would be faster for me to look something up on GhatGPT and confirm it with a Google search than just starting with a google search.

And then how inevitable is an AI product from Google, et al?

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#122

Post by Levitz »

megablast wrote: post #13
n0tth3dro1ds wrote: post #4

I agree that chat bots aren’t the proper modality for replacing search. So what? Currently, Google search results stink. ChatGPT results are way better in a number of domains. Does it need to be a chat bot? No. But Google still stinks now. I’ll take anything that can just find the correct information.

Google has ruined the web. Look what they did to recipe sites?? Truly awful. And there used to be sites that answered the question on the search page. Google pushed them to the bottom.

Half of what constitutes SEO is an utter disgrace.

Every single hour spent putting work on a website that doesn't go towards any of its users is better not happening. If AI is what it takes so a website doesn't have to "feature" whatever amount of useless stupid paragraphs riddled with keywords to tell Google what the site is about then so be it.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#123

Post by [deleted] »

lolinder wrote: post #86
gukov wrote: post #22

The way I see it: - Today's search engines will give you links to millions of documents - ChatGPT, if asked correctly, will instead generate one perfect document based on millions of the documents To me, that's a clear evolution of the search engine, especially with all the SEO & ad spam that's plaguing Google and others currently. I wasn't ready to pay a monthly fee for an ad-free Google. I am ready to pay for somet…

The problem with ChatGPT as a replacement for Google is that it was not designed to produce accurate facts, and it shows. This model cut its teeth writing articles about the discovery of unicorns in the Andes[0] for goodness sake! It's a language model, and a very impressive one at that, but language is used to express falsehoods and fiction just as regularly as it is used to express truth. This doesn't mean that it…

[deleted]

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#125

Post by CM30 »

megablast wrote: post #13
n0tth3dro1ds wrote: post #4

I agree that chat bots aren’t the proper modality for replacing search. So what? Currently, Google search results stink. ChatGPT results are way better in a number of domains. Does it need to be a chat bot? No. But Google still stinks now. I’ll take anything that can just find the correct information.

Google has ruined the web. Look what they did to recipe sites?? Truly awful. And there used to be sites that answered the question on the search page. Google pushed them to the bottom.

Is that purely a Google thing? I thought the bullshit added to recipes pages was also a copyright thing, in an attempt to stop aggregation services using them.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#126

Post by Renaud »

Search engines are and anomaly. They started as indexes of content and have remained in that form.

I still have to do all the work of synthesising the knowledge I need from the results.

It’s like having to go through the list of references of a scientific paper or Wikipedia article without having access to the article itself.

ChatGPT is giving you the article, it summarised that knowledge for you, a much effective way of getting what you actually want.

The ideal would be a combined system where I get my answer and also the relevant references that shaped it.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#127

Post by Levitz »

permo-w wrote: post #72
mc32 wrote: post #32

The big drawback chatGPT has is that on many topics it walks on eggshells. It can’t give me a direct answer. It couches the answers in nonsensical caveats. Adding stilted context that really does not add value to an answer and actually makes the search more tedious. If I ask it the male female breakdown for crime statistics it begins to get defensive and gives me general answers. I can prod it to finally give me gove…

you can say a lot about Google, but at least they’ve never sat down and said “no more porn”, or blocked specific words from being searched, which is a little surprising actually. I’m sure bigger advertisers will have broached the subject on many occasions

It doesn't technically block words from being searched, but it does hide sites intentionally.

It won't show you kiwifarms. It used to hide 8ch (which now is not even 8ch anymore, the new version can be found). It won't show you 4chan's /pol/ board. I'm sure there's more.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#128

Post by unshavedyak »

Renaud wrote: post #126

Search engines are and anomaly. They started as indexes of content and have remained in that form. I still have to do all the work of synthesising the knowledge I need from the results. It’s like having to go through the list of references of a scientific paper or Wikipedia article without having access to the article itself. ChatGPT is giving you the article, it summarised that knowledge for you, a much effective wa…

Makes me wonder if there's a future where something like ChatGPT is able to cite everything that influenced any piece of information/understanding. Not just articles, but the AI version of a human with a highlighter. For any piece of ML derived information it would be cool to see all of the highlights that went into it.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#130

Post by dinkumthinkum »

gvurrdon wrote: post #59

Assuming this refers to https://chat.openai.com/ , it's rather difficult to try it out. After creating an account it demanded a phone number. Of course, I will not supply my own, and temporary ones I tried were either recognised as such or rejected has having already been used.

I’m always curious about people. Are you trolling or are you serious. You haven’t heard of ChatGPT before?
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