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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

#181

Post by ClumsyPilot »

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…

> This is like the Google answer extracts, which fairly frequently mislead by extracting out-of-context quotes

My favourite Google extracts:

Q: Who invented Running

A: [random guy] invented running in 1865 when he tried to walk twice at the same time. It was an overnight success

Q: How much does a [model of a bycicle] weight?

A: 140 KG (Maximum weight of the rider)

Q: Define an english Person

A: A Cunt

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#182

Post by klabb3 »

Gigachad wrote: post #144
charcircuit wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Adding “reddit” to the query is the best option so far.

Case in point. The fact that this works really well for this type of content means that Google has failed. Now whether they failed deliberately or not is a different question.

In either case, search needs to be demonopolized. The truth is we don’t even know what search would be like without the Google hegemony. Even if all language models do is force Google to innovate and improve it’s worth every penny.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#183

Post by forrestthewoods »

layer8 wrote: post #98
forrestthewoods wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not particularly different from comments on HackerNews and Reddit. There’s a lot of extremely confident and very wrong answers on both sites! ChatGPT is probably more wrong more often, by a good margin. But I don’t think the argument “it’s confidently wrong” carries any weight. Humans are extremely susceptible to humans who display confidence. It’d probably be a good thing if humans were as skeptical of confid…

> There’s a lot of extremely confident and very wrong answers on both sites! Yeah, but you get to look at a multitude of them, at the context, at replies, at the websites they link to, and can form your own opinion. ChatGPT isn’t able to do that work for you.

Wait a few years and we’ll have multiple ChatGPTs from multiple sources you can ask the same question and compare the answer!

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#186

Post by ClumsyPilot »

cortesoft wrote: post #142
solarkraft wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And what was the result of unchecked faulty learning on a corrupt dataset by natural intelligence?

Dark ages where millions died in pointless wars over who's imaginary diety is the true one. A third of europe dying of preventable plague. It took a rigorous system of citation and a publically funded system of education to crawl out of the drakness.

Should we try AI powred dark ages but with resource shortage and nuclear weapons?

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#187

Post by ClumsyPilot »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #117
lolinder wrote: post #86

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…

Neither was Wikipedia. But it works well enough.

Wikipedia is designed to be as accurate as possible and is one of the few remaining website that produce value and content.

Please notice that in current setup of 'Internet capitalism' people that produce value and content earn nothing, and people that harvest that content for profit or engage in outright fraud make fortunes.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#188

Post by xiphias2 »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #103
lolinder wrote: post #86

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…

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

Actually it was designed for that, and it was top line OKR for a long time. Amit Signhal rewrote the search engine and was a great leader caring a lot about relevancy until he was kicked out for harassment (it was deserved as far as I know, but at the same time Google lost an amazing engineer).

In my experience the detoriation came after the change in leadership.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#189

Post by scarface74 »

22289d wrote: post #175
scarface74 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my specific specialty - AWS - I asked it a lot of questions like I would at an interview and it answered the questions well enough that I would have passed a candidate who gave me the same answers. I didn’t just ask definitions. I asked your standard compare and contrast, why would you use, is X and appropriate use of Y, etc. It can also write Python code, modify existing code based on plain English sentences and…

That's awesome, it does seem to be quite good at writing code. But in that case, you can test for it's weaknesses by asking it anything recent. The models are only trained on data through X date. Ask it something after X and it wont have the data to answer you correctly. Like about some new framework or feature.

Hell I work at AWS in Professional Services and you could ask me anything recent to test my weaknesses. I can’t keep up with all of the announcements.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#190

Post by ClumsyPilot »

notwokeno wrote: post #81
forrest2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is flywheel issue with generative search: content producers, information curators or outlets, etc need to get paid. People are okay-ish with Google in part because it drives traffic and traffic can be profitable. Fancy features that snatch website content and show them in Google's result pages are already not appreciated by indexed websites. If generative search becomes the dominant interface, we will eventuall…

People are going to continue to write books and documentation because AI don't replace those (new software won't be explained by AI so it needs documentation and AI hallucinates anyway so you still have to check it. Books are similar but more extreme.) People will also continue to chat with each other in eg IRC because human connection is pleasant on a metaphysical level (AI cannot replace this) so you'll always have…

People will not write books and blogs if they can't pay the bills. If AI xant replace those, you will have no books and blogs. Thats how market works.

> People will also continue to chat with each other... so you'll always have that as a data source.

Your solution takes us back to before invention of the printing oress? the dark ages?

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