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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

#141
post #127
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is true. They do hide some legal sites (i.e. not banned or prohibited content) that they or vocal interest groups push back on but it's really miniscule in scope compared to chatGPT. ChatGPT is like the parent of a 5 year old who tries to hide reality from a child --except the people using chatGPT are not five year-olds. It's very passive aggressive. It's almost as though it were built by very pious religious people, except it treats everything as needing protection from reality so as not to offend the person interacting with it.

I wouldn't mind if it had a toggle such as "take me back to the kittens" to shield me from the potential informational dregs but also allow semi-unfiltered access (shielding me from illegal content for example).

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I believe this to be a huge deal. In no time a huge part of the internet will be AI-generated and we will pollute our data set for research and training AI with things that are subtly or completely false at times and we won't be able to tell. It's a lot like iRobot or other stories in which the robots will start to subtly misbehave, like a program you can't debug.

How is this different than regular intelligence? We grow up trained on a polluted dataset, being taught things that are subtly or completely false, and we often struggle to tell which things we have learned are false.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#143
Let's go to the source ;-)

Question: Will AI chatbots replace search engines?

ChatGPT Answer: It is unlikely that AI chatbots will completely replace search engines. While chatbots are useful for answering specific questions and providing information on a wide range of topics, search engines are designed to help users find specific information that is widely available on the internet.

Search engines use algorithms to crawl and index the web, making it easy for users to find relevant information by using keywords and phrases. Chatbots, on the other hand, use natural language processing (NLP) techniques to understand and respond to user requests in a conversational manner.

In some cases, chatbots may be able to provide users with the information they need without requiring them to use a search engine. For example, a chatbot could provide users with personalized recommendations or help them find specific products or services based on their preferences. However, search engines will likely continue to play a crucial role in helping users find information on the internet.

Question: Imagine an scenario where they replace them almost completely, what innovation would be there?

Answer: If AI chatbots were to replace search engines almost completely, it is likely that the chatbots would need to be significantly more advanced than they are currently. In order to replace search engines, chatbots would need to be able to effectively index and organize the vast amount of information available on the internet, and be able to provide users with accurate and relevant results in response to their queries.

One potential innovation that could enable chatbots to replace search engines is the development of more advanced natural language processing (NLP) techniques. Chatbots would need to be able to understand and interpret complex queries and requests, and be able to accurately provide relevant information in response.

Another potential innovation is the development of more sophisticated machine learning algorithms that can help chatbots understand the context and intent behind user queries, and provide more relevant and accurate responses. This could involve the use of techniques such as deep learning and neural networks, which are designed to enable machines to learn and adapt over time.

Overall, it is likely that the replacement of search engines by chatbots would require significant technological advancements in the field of artificial intelligence and natural language processing.

Question: Do you think technologies such as ChatGPT will confuse search engines to know if web pages are written by humans or computers?

Answer: It is possible that the development of technologies such as ChatGPT (short for Chat Generative Pre-training Transformer) could make it more difficult for search engines to determine whether web pages are written by humans or computers. ChatGPT is a large language model that has been trained to generate human-like text by analyzing a large dataset of online conversations. As a result, it is capable of producing text that is difficult to distinguish from text written by humans.

However, it is worth noting that search engines have become increasingly sophisticated over the years, and they have a number of techniques at their disposal for determining the quality and relevance of web pages. These techniques include analyzing the structure and content of web pages, evaluating the credibility and authority of the sources that are cited on the pages, and looking for patterns of suspicious or spammy behavior.

It is therefore likely that search engines will continue to be able to identify and prioritize web pages written by humans over those written by computers, even as the capabilities of technologies like ChatGPT improve.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucks for things that can be monetised. Searching info on products for example. Just because SEO spammers are too good. text generators will make this problem so much worse because the spam will look exactly like the hand made content.

query: "apple watch" 1st result: https://www.apple.com/watch/ Google worked perfectly for me when I wanted to buy a product.

For the most trivial queries. Try something like “best frypan” and it becomes a lot harder to find real content that isn’t sponsored junk. Adding “reddit” to the query is the best option so far.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#145
post #36
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you verify that chatgpt answers are correct? (And to be honest, how do you gauge the correctness of random internet sites)?

To speak to GP's point, a number of times already I've failed to find something immediately on Google, asked chatgpt, gotten an answer and then used Google to verify chatgpt's answer. Google is great if you already know exactly what you're looking for, for a lot of topics chatgpt is already better than Google if you don't

Google is currently unpolluted by GPT results.

What happens when Google gets swamped with AI generated SEO content. Probably why they called a code red.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#146
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…

> Today's search engines will give you links to millions of documents

Today's search engines will give you 500 results per query. Your point still stands - sorting through 500 results is hard work.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

devils advocate, but Google wasn’t designed to make sure the links it aggregates at the top are accurate/isn’t just blog spam designed to cater to specialized SEO tricks

I agree that Google is terrible at its job and produces garbage most of the time. That's the only reason why an LLM chatbot is seen by anyone as a viable replacement. But at the very least Google always gives you the source, which allows you to read it for yourself and judge its trustworthiness. No such option for ChatGPT.

The highest placed links on Google are basically guaranteed to:

1) Not be the actual source of content 2) Not link to the original source

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#149
post #145
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To speak to GP's point, a number of times already I've failed to find something immediately on Google, asked chatgpt, gotten an answer and then used Google to verify chatgpt's answer. Google is great if you already know exactly what you're looking for, for a lot of topics chatgpt is already better than Google if you don't

Google is currently unpolluted by GPT results. What happens when Google gets swamped with AI generated SEO content. Probably why they called a code red.

> Google is currently unpolluted by GPT results.

This is self-evidently false; there is plenty of indexed content on the web generate by publicly available LLMs, including OpenAI’s GPT series, and open source implementations of similar technology.

Maybe even more generated by the non-publicly-available ones some firms have for their own use.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#150
post #49
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…

Yeah, it is so obviously a usefull user interface pattern. The real question is if it can be made accurate. I have asked chatGPT about my boss (a well published researcher) and it managed to summarise his work quite well, name the field he has worked in and even write about some of his previous projects. It also insisted on that he is already dead. Which made it very funny when I have shown it to him. :) But funny do…

I don't think accuracy matters as much as the ability to describe various opinions and attribute them to sources.
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