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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

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT in its current form can't replace google but plausible to think in its next few incarnations it will get there. Why can't it have a mode where it returns more rigorous results, and includes some system of links as citation? It can include footnotes for various passages of it's answer to indicate ambiguity, varying levels of confidence, etc.

Contrary to all the naysayers I think a future version of GTP will be trained to evaluate its own certainty and express this verbally. Probably through an extra training channel.

It has no concept of certainty, unless it was embedded in the original data. What you are describing is an more general AI. This is a language model. I like to think of it of a cognitive intelligence: the ability to process input and compare it to a stunning array of trained data that will have many parallels to reality but has no concept of it.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT in its current form can't replace google but plausible to think in its next few incarnations it will get there. Why can't it have a mode where it returns more rigorous results, and includes some system of links as citation? It can include footnotes for various passages of it's answer to indicate ambiguity, varying levels of confidence, etc.

Because to make it focus on always producing accurate results (or rather a very low false positive rate) you need to dramatically change and tune the model. Which is much harder than what Google does because it means you'd also need to vet a lot of facts as well (by weighting certain sources, not individually). Or allowing it to search the internet (which also comes with other issues and if it is using Google to do t…

What we want is not what we get unless it makes bank. Nobody (generalizing here) works to better humanity, they work to get money. if it aligns well that’s just shear luck. The world needs a lot more people who want see the world to succeed.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#294
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…

>one perfect document based on millions of the documents

this literally sounds like a super-lossy compression, who would ever want this? People want crystal-clear, lossless information from original source, not a compressed mess with random artifacts.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#295
They are not, however the search engine function will now be more specific. Do you want to discover sources or do you just need information?

Keep in mind that AIs (have already) will infest the search engines by creating websites with the content you search ad hoc and many other tricks. If there is money in it, AIs will take over it, ultimately for the benefit of the user.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#296
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…

But I can fact check/compare-contrast with said links to millions of documents myself...and I think that's crucial to overall intellectual of humanity than ready-to-eat answer.

Imagine the world that you have the perfect answer to everything, curated by algorithm. It's cool, but...are those answers really perfect?

It's creepy. or at least that's what I feel when I play with ChatGPT(after the initial jawdrop, of course)

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this is feasible or not, but having the chat bot also be able to respond with a subset of sources that it based its answer on would be a satisfying combination of both worlds I think. I would be really curious to see how trying to learn a new subject via a chatbot that is able to also provide source material links would go.

> I don’t know if this is feasible or not, but having the chat bot also be able to respond with a subset of sources that it based its answer on would be a satisfying combination of both worlds I think. But an LLM doesn’t look at particular sources, find relevant ones, and write a response based on them, it is a mathematical summation of the way all of its sources look as sequences of text, and produces a response tha…

After I commented I did do a little bit of thinking about the little that I know about this subject and realized that it probably isn't feasible to extract that data. Thanks for the comment because... you are right as far as I know. It is a bit disappointing to realize this though.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#298
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because to make it focus on always producing accurate results (or rather a very low false positive rate) you need to dramatically change and tune the model. Which is much harder than what Google does because it means you'd also need to vet a lot of facts as well (by weighting certain sources, not individually). Or allowing it to search the internet (which also comes with other issues and if it is using Google to do t…

What we want is not what we get unless it makes bank. Nobody (generalizing here) works to better humanity, they work to get money. if it aligns well that’s just shear luck. The world needs a lot more people who want see the world to succeed.

I think this is a highly pessimistic view. While I know many that are profit motivated and I won't argue that this isn't the majority, I know many people that just want to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I'll tell you that personally my dream is to just be able to research and not worry about constraints like publishing (I'd rather open blog) or computational constraints (don't need a data center. A few dozen A100s is more than enough). There are a lot of people like me and a lot that would be like that if they didn't have financial constraints. Having this dream is a privilege and even I didn't have it when I was living paycheck to paycheck.

So I think if you want to see more people with my dream then push towards a post scarce world. We'll still have plenty of resource constraints, but it does change the game a lot. I think you'll see more artists as well. A new renaissance. But I fear the transitionary period might be quite difficult and disruptive. I do think such a future has a fairly good probability of happening within many of our lifetimes and almost guaranteed if we actively pushed for it (or solved adjacent problems like HLI).

So don't be so pessimistic. There's millions of people out there that are interested in pushing the bounds of human knowledge because that's what they want. I'd argue that physicists and mathematicians wouldn't exist if this weren't true. They get paid shit for extremely difficult work. We could say the same about many sciences. While not all of these people are in it for bettering humanity (just for pursuing knowledge) it often aligns and there is a decent portion who believe this is the point of science and our purpose, as humans, in life.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#299
They are exactly that - search engine evolution. I don't want to search through 100s of pages looking for an information - I want information based on the context I provided and then references to relevant pages if I need them. If you provide that no one will want to use regular search anymore. I don't think that we are there yet, even with next gen. gpt4. But it is inevitable to happen. My prediction is - if Google doesn't release competitor to ChatGPT in 2023 it is doomed in the next 5-6y, just like Yahoo. And Microsoft finally wins search engine war.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#300
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…

>perfect

you keep using that word

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