I remember when Google first arrived on the scene -- I had been using Alta Vista before then and Google's search was like a miracle. But Google these days just feels like Alta Vista in the 1999, except that the haystack is a lot bigger now and more of it is spam.
ChatGPT won’t replace search engines any time soon
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Re: ChatGPT won’t replace search engines any time soon
#292They might not replace them, but it fulfills a role that Google could do previously. Try to find out what type of a spring is in a spring clamp using google? "What type of a spring is in a spring clamp?" Or use whatever query you want. The top 10 results won't tell me the answer. Ask ChatGPT. It'll tell you (spoiler: it's a tension spring or a torsion spring. It's not a coil spring.) 8 out of 10 Google results are tr…
Google says "tempered spring" in bold. Doesn't sound like the answer you're looking for, but it was very clear.
The majority of the search results are for places to buy a spring clamp. This is because the overwhelming majority of people who search for that term are looking to buy them, not to learn about what they are. I assume this is true for most specialized parts and equipment.
The majority of humans are more interested in accomplishing a task than they are in any form of learning. So that's what Google optimizes for. They have billions of users and most of them aren't looking to learn about how anything works on a given day. They just need to buy a clamp, or whatever.
Re: ChatGPT won’t replace search engines any time soon
#293...But ChatGPT's successors just might . I, for one, look forward to a future in which I can ask a digital assistant to find and summarize information on anything: "Computer, please find out how GPS works and explain it to me like I'm five years old." "Computer, what are the latest Covid-19 infection stats in my city?" "Computer, who is Claude Shannon and why is he important?" "Computer, what are the top three storie…
"Computer, please find out how GPS works and explain it to me like I'm five years old." ChatGPT: GPS stands for Global Positioning System. It is a way that we can figure out where we are in the world using special satellites. Imagine you are standing outside and you see lots of stars in the sky. Well, GPS works kind of like that, but instead of stars, there are satellites orbiting the Earth. These satellites are way…
I asked it to explain it to me like I'm Shrek.
Imagine that the GPS satellites orbiting the Earth are like the magic lanterns in the sky, sending signals down to a receiver (like the one in your phone or car). The receiver can use those signals to figure out how far away it is from each of the magic lanterns. By measuring the distance to multiple lanterns, the receiver can triangulate its position and figure out exactly where it is on the surface of the Earth. So even if you're a big, green ogre like Shrek, you can use GPS to find your way around and never get lost!
Re: ChatGPT won’t replace search engines any time soon
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know this thread is about ChatGPT, but if you're still using Google then I suggest giving Kagi a try. It's a paid search engine, but I've been using it for quite a while now and really enjoy it. With Kagi you can rank and downrank domains as well as block them. There's also this think called "lenses" which are basically filters for specific kinds of searches. For instance, I have a "Programming" lens and a "Academi…
> I suggest giving Kagi a try Does not have a sound business model. Let's not waste time on something that is not viable.
So what?
For now it's clearly better, and not very expensive.
If it fails, I'll find something else, until then why not use it?
Re: ChatGPT won’t replace search engines any time soon
#295I think folks are really underestimating Google in this space. They have: 1) access to way more data than what ChatGPT was trained on 2) access to data freshness through their crawlers 3) knowledge graph for a source of truth https://blog.google/products/search/about-knowledge-graph-an... 4) their own large language model LaMDA, that is apparently so good it convinced a senior AI researcher that it was sentient https…
> their own large language model LaMDA, that is apparently so good it convinced a senior AI researcher that it was sentient
It is certainly worth looking into the controversy about that particular engineer (was he actually a programmer?). There's plenty of room for exciting debate to be had about defining and testing for sentience and I'm glad it stirred that debate. But researchers with far better credentials criticized his reasoning and I imagine that is quite a ubiquitous view in NLP research.
I think the Washington Post did the initial reporting and they covered it well - even criticising his arguments that e.g. the Turing test is a proper test of sentience. There's audio of their conversation in an episode of Post Reports.
Re: ChatGPT won’t replace search engines any time soon
#296Relatively soon someone will figure out how to automate having chatgpt stand up barely functional (over time) servers. Then they will be able to ask chatgpt to create websites about x, y, or z. At that point, knowledge and our ability to trust the internet, which was already on shaky ground, will completely evaporate.
Re: ChatGPT won’t replace search engines any time soon
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ChatGPT gets tripped up in some edge conditions. No. ChatGPT has no idea of the truth value of anything it produces. That's fine for writing fiction, but it's not an "edge condition" when searching for actual information.
I'd love for you to explain how a search engine does have any idea of truth.
It refers to real web pages, so it's not making up results the way that ChatGPT does. The value of those web pages is assessed using an algorithm like PageRank.
Re: ChatGPT won’t replace search engines any time soon
#298For me, Google Search just doesn't seem to be getting better over the years, if anything its getting worse. I honestly feel like its hard to get what I want half the time with all the SEO spam, most of the time I have to input "inurl:reddit.com" just to get good results. At the same time, ChatGPT has frequently impressed me, not with everything (my expectations are reasonably low) but it has performed amazing work fo…
Freakonomics recently did an episode on their podcast trying to answer this very question:
-Is Google Getting Worse? https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-google-getting-worse/
To their credit, Google actually participated in the episode.
Re: ChatGPT won’t replace search engines any time soon
#299ChatGPT is already chipping away at my Google searches. I'm more and more just starting there for coding related questions. I've had chatgpt help me with the following just this week among other things. - solved a complex issue with scaling and transformations using pixijs upon providing a code example. The solution was 99% there and saved me hours of debugging. - refactored JavaScript to the async/await pattern - si…
I've been using it and Google in parallel and have find it generally helpful, but I've had multiple instances where ChatGPT completely made up new library functions. Same for others I've talked to.
Re: ChatGPT won’t replace search engines any time soon
#300For any chatbot I will ask only 2 questions, one is about myself (since I placed an easter egg in software AOL took and used back in the day) and what time is it? ChatGPT thankfully may or may not be connected to the internet @ prompt but that is usually a good giveaway. IMO Google blew it when they took away Google via SMS, this is the hole ChatGPT(x) can fill.
> IMO Google blew it when they took away Google via SMS, this is the hole ChatGPT(x) can fill. This is curious. What is the use case for this?
Once upon a time, https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.c...