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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

#331

Post by powerapple »

anonytrary wrote: post #320
franze wrote: post #312

I needed to write an official letter today. I could have written it myself, but that would take some effort. I could google it, scroll past the ads. Click on the first result, hope it is kinda what I need. On that page scroll past the ads and SEO blabla-text. Copy the information that I need. Paste it in a doc. Rewrite it to what I need. Fill in my information. I went to ChatGPT told him what kind of letter I need. T…

The key thing to understand about Google (the search product) is that it does search somewhat well but it is extremely bad at synthesis. When it comes to big data, synthesis is just as important as search. The UX with traditional 2000-era search engines involves the user being given a library's worth of information rabbit holes to dig through. With synthesis engines, the UX is completely different and they might even…

The question is that if you can have "write me a letter", would you still go for "find out how to write a letter"? Needless to say you can actually have model to explain to you "how to write a letter" better than Google. How do I use Google now (kind of, because I switched to duckduckgo actually)? Mostly to search for answers to a question, a error message or something. It can be solved with ChatGPT, except ChatGPT is not as convenient given I can type in address bar, browser will bring me to a search page. For me Google is a gateway to StackOverflow, wiki, documentations, blogs, it is very much replaceable.

No one currently uses Google search to draft letter not because we don't want to, because Google is not able to solve the problem, hence we settle with a two-step solution, find out how then do it.

Another thing I use Google search (again duckduckgo) is for navigation, I remember partial name of a website, and use it to find the link to the page.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#332

Post by ilyt »

No shit, people are replacing product support with it, not search engines...

Also OP fucked up re-redacting title from sense into nonsense.

But it would be interesting seeing ChatGPT-like but learned on say entirety of some fictional universe bibliography, wh40k chatbot that knows all the lore!

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#333

Post by AussieWog93 »

charcircuit wrote: post #233
Gigachad wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Google doesn't know the fact of what frying pan is objectively the best and websites containing such an answer are going to be biased. That's an impossible query to answer with more personalization which may not even be possible.

The point is that if you search "best frypan reddit", you'll get real recommendations from real people who have actually used the product. Maybe you won't find the objectively best frypan on Earth, but you'll find a very good one along some information about why that particular product is good.

If you simply search "best frypan", you'll get lists of affiliate links to overpriced Chinese crap, written by someone who has never even looked at any of the products in person and frankly doesn't even care if they're any good.

Google shouldn't be expected to know everything, but it should know that someone searching for "best frypan" is looking for real recommendations and not literal spam pumped out by a content mill.

Searching for services like appliance repair or removalists are even worse, to the point where I'll now just ask on private Facebook groups for recommendations.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#334

Post by rasz »

mehdix wrote: post #310
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…

Can't agree more. When using Google & co. most of my time is wasted trying to filter low quality sponsored or high SEO reaults. ChatGPT gives me an excellent summary of what I wanted to know without all the noise.

as long as what you wanted were imaginary "facts"

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#335

Post by anonytrary »

WJW wrote: post #41
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…

What kills it for me (so far, perhaps they can fix it in the future) is that there is no way to know if you've actually asked ChatGPT correctly and it has given you a perfect document with the answer you seek, or if your question was slightly off and it has given a wrong answer, or even if your question was correct but it still confidently gives the wrong answer. It famously asserted numbers like 42 were prime early…

1. Does Google inform you that you have asked a bad or unproductive question? 2. Does Google guarantee the links it provides you with contain high quality and relevant information? 3. Does Google ensure that the #1 link contains the correct answer?

I think we are forgetting that Google suffers from these problems too. A human who asks bad questions will continue to ask bad questions. AI should in general be trained to do what the human wants. If the human wants something stupid, that's on the human. Google also isn't guaranteed to find the right information you're looking for, especially if it is on an obscure topic or if the query is highly overloaded or being taken over by current trends.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#336

Post by Kurtz79 »

anonytrary wrote: post #320
franze wrote: post #312

I needed to write an official letter today. I could have written it myself, but that would take some effort. I could google it, scroll past the ads. Click on the first result, hope it is kinda what I need. On that page scroll past the ads and SEO blabla-text. Copy the information that I need. Paste it in a doc. Rewrite it to what I need. Fill in my information. I went to ChatGPT told him what kind of letter I need. T…

The key thing to understand about Google (the search product) is that it does search somewhat well but it is extremely bad at synthesis. When it comes to big data, synthesis is just as important as search. The UX with traditional 2000-era search engines involves the user being given a library's worth of information rabbit holes to dig through. With synthesis engines, the UX is completely different and they might even…

The thing is, chatGPT seems to be already capable to perform Google's function reasonably well.

If you ask for the top websites about [topic], it will output a shortlist of web links each with a description of the website.

You can narrow down, ask for a specific number of links, ask to exclude videos or specific websites from the results...etc.

If there was a chatGPT service with UI/speed/availability/up-to-date database of Google (a 2-months-old technology vs. a 25-years-old one), I would probably do my searches there almost exclusively.

In a world where we are bombarded by nearly limitless information, the ability to synthesise and focus on what one is already looking for is far more valuable than the breadth of results Google will output.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#337

Post by speedgoose »

rasz wrote: post #334
mehdix wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't agree more. When using Google & co. most of my time is wasted trying to filter low quality sponsored or high SEO reaults. ChatGPT gives me an excellent summary of what I wanted to know without all the noise.

as long as what you wanted were imaginary "facts"

I think we are many to focus on the current shortcomings but it’s not unreasonable to think that a future chatGPT will be better at stating wrong things with a high confidence.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#338

Post by kosh2 »

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.

It is true but then again, we constantly ajust the trust in sources based on what works and what doesn't.

If I watch a youtube tutorial teaching me how to bake pizza and it comes out totally wrong and a watch another that produces exelent pizza, I disregard the first channel.

And there are many more ways where humans check the reputation of sources automatically.

GPT currently lacks this possibility.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#339

Post by jillesvangurp »

userbinator wrote: post #34

They are not a replacement, but unfortunately search engines are turning into AI chatbots too. When I think of a search engine I want a "grep for the Internet", not an "AI". Looking up part numbers for ICs and other electronic components is the most prominent application where search engines like Google have gotten far worse in recent years, and AI ain't going to work there either.

We probably will end up with AI using search engines to tell us what we are looking for. The process of using your eyes to look at search results is something an AI can do for us. That's different from a pre-trained model that already knows what you are looking for and doesn't need to go out and look for it. That's what chat-gpt is today.

All Google needs to do is upgrade the frontend to their search engine to be a conversational AI that knows how to query their search engine effectively. Of course easier said then done and Google's inability to implement big technical changes to their core products is becoming a problem. This should be in their comfort zone; but it isn't. It's not about what they can do but about what they are willing to do. And they seem hesitant to commit to doing anything, often withdrawing products before they've even had a chance to fail properly.

The big hurdles here are going to be cost and controversy. Doing this stuff at scale is going to be expensive. That comes straight out of their profit margin. And inevitably there are going to be controversies with AI getting it wrong, being biased, offensive, etc. Also not great for profits. Google is the wrong company to be doing this.

That's why OpenAI is going where Google would be well capable of going without actually going there. One of those two companies is going to get billions of revenue in paid accounts next year for AI services. The other one is going to be obsessing about their add revenue. I expect a few more startups might jump in this space once the money start flowing.

Re: AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines

#340

Post by barefeg »

The way I see it is that Google (search engines) is a particular solution to a set of retrieval information problems. ChatGPT does seem to be a good solution for a different set of problems. As others have pointed out both have their benefits and limitations.

The future of how we retrieve knowledge might use a combination of these technologies along with others that may not yet exist.

ChatGPT is definitely showcasing how good the future systems will be at understanding natural language input, as well as producing answers in the appropriate form.

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