Bard and new AI features in Search • Hacker News Board

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#341

Post by cuteboy19 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 8:31 PM UTC

sethbannon wrote: post #158

andrewstuart wrote: post #60

Lotus 123, Borland and Wordperfect were at the top of the software world. They failed to make the transition to GUIs/Windows. Microsoft missed the arrival of the web. Microsoft also missed the mobile revolution and ended up with zero mobile operating system market share. Internet Explorer, having vanquished Netscape, declared "job done" and stopped developing the web browser further, only to be cast to irrelevance fo…

I was able to see LaMDA in action about 1.5 years ago. It was just as awe-inducing as ChatGPT. Google is not behind in this race. They're simply slower to roll out new functionality. And maybe rightly so? Some of the things I saw ChatGPT say would have been multi-day international bad headlines for Google, if a Google AI had said them instead of an upstart startup.

They should have had the courage to weather through that noise. Or do something like Microsoft and acquire after release. These are just excuses tbh

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#342

Post by layer8 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

impulser_ wrote: post #305

For anyone that is interested. This is the ChatGPT reply to the exact same question asked in the preview in the article. Here are a few things that the James Webb Space Telescope is expected to discover that you could share with your 9-year-old: The formation of stars and planets: The James Webb Space Telescope will be able to observe the birth of stars and the formation of planetary systems, helping us understand ho…

This difference can be ascribed to ChatGPT’s knowledge cutoff date in 2021.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

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Post by Oras » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

Missing the point of positioning by miles.

I’m sure Google will release something good, but it will be called: Google’s ChatGPT.

Should have made something to distinguish their AI solutions from just being a copy to trendy solution.

Saying AI will be used in search is not news, AI is already part of Google search.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#344

Post by ifyoubuildit » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #304

Question for AI experts out there: ChatGPT is awesome, but it is obviously hamstrung by the fact that it crawled the web at the end of 2021, so all of its data is essentially "frozen" and it doesn't "know" of any topics that occurred after 2021. Seems to me like the next "holy grail" in large language models is building a model that can be continually updated. If Google can achieve that, I think they could leapfrog O…

> ChatGPT is awesome, but it is obviously hamstrung by the fact that it crawled the web at the end of 2021, so all of its data is essentially "frozen" and it doesn't "know" of any topics that occurred after 2021

I think this could be a feature. Things on the internet have a life cycle. After a while they can be altered to fit various agendas or just drowned out by seo nonsense. Seeing an immutable snapshot in time might be a good defense of that.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#345

Post by nabakin » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

bnralt wrote: post #188

jjeaff wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially good for users initially. But I can't see how anyone will be incentivized to create and post content for Google to scrape if they won't have any traffic from Google. It could actually be a huge benefit in some ways if it chokes out the content mills. However, something tells me that they have little to no overhead compared to the people who actually toil away to post good, original content.

> But I can't see how anyone will be incentivized to create and post content for Google to scrape if they won't have any traffic from Google. The problem right now is that the incentives have caused most of the output online to be garbage.

Exactly. If Google is able to provide better answers than the garbage websites with their SEO hacks, those garbage websites will not get clicks. I could see this improving the incentive system significantly

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

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Post by relaxing » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #287

wiremine wrote: post #232

I agree this is bland corporate speak. But it reminded me of a question that's been floating around: A number of pundits, here on HN and elsewhere, keep referring to these large language models are "google killers." This just doesn't make sense to me. It feels like Google can easily pivot its ad engine to work with the AI-driven chat systems. It can augment answers with links to additional sources of information, be…

I guess a couple of reasons: 1) Because it is disruptive. Things may get shook up, and Google may not end up in as exclusive position as they are currently in. There's risk. 2) Because it's not obvious how advertising would fit in with a conversational interface. Google may stay as #1 search/answer engine, but would revenue be adversely affected?

Banner, sidebar, in-line, interstitial, modal… what advertising modes wouldn’t work on conversational interface?

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#347

Post by xen2xen1 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

ekanes wrote: post #263

wiremine wrote: post #232

I agree this is bland corporate speak. But it reminded me of a question that's been floating around: A number of pundits, here on HN and elsewhere, keep referring to these large language models are "google killers." This just doesn't make sense to me. It feels like Google can easily pivot its ad engine to work with the AI-driven chat systems. It can augment answers with links to additional sources of information, be…

I think it's the first credible challenge to google's results in 2 ways. 1. People are typing questions into it and finding it hugely useful in ways that overlap with google. It just answers you, and you can ask clarifying questions, argue with it, etc. It's proving useful. 2. More subtly, the excitement around it seems to reveal that people are open to alternatives. For decades, alternative search engines haven't ma…

Hey Google, how big is Maine? G: It's xxx big. Person: Do I know anyone there ? G:No one is in your address book. P: What's the closest person I know to Maine? G:Bob. G: Is this about your asking about Maple Syrup last night? There are closer places to get fresh Maple Syrup, how about Michigan? Contrived, but not impossible.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

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Post by radicaldreamer » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 8:33 PM UTC

theropost wrote: post #276

asim wrote: post #224

People forget that Larry Page's ultimate goal was to have Google predict what you wanted before you even asked for it. This isn't about hype. This isn't about beating the competition. This is about delivering on a 3 decade dream that's now coming to fruition and Sundar just happens to be the one leading the org as it manifests in the real world. We're going to end up with 10+ vertically integrated AI solutions like t…

I'd love for this to be true. I bought into the Google ecosystem in a huge way, but it seems like they have been more focused on the data collection, and advertising end of things, rather than the innovation, and productivity enablement one. Their ecosystem has consitently been a let down in many regards, and they have lost a lot of forward momentum. I hope they can super charge this stuff, but I feel their corporate…

Similar sentiment here. I look at the state of my android phone today and see a company that seems like it got bored of building out a mobile platform after they “won” on usage.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#349

Post by causalmodels » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 8:33 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #304

Question for AI experts out there: ChatGPT is awesome, but it is obviously hamstrung by the fact that it crawled the web at the end of 2021, so all of its data is essentially "frozen" and it doesn't "know" of any topics that occurred after 2021. Seems to me like the next "holy grail" in large language models is building a model that can be continually updated. If Google can achieve that, I think they could leapfrog O…

Deepmind has been doing some interesting work around Retrieval Enhanced Transformers (RETRO) models [1] that might be relevant in this context.

[1] https://www.deepmind.com/blog/improving-language-models-by-r...

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#350

Post by richardw » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 8:33 PM UTC

wiremine wrote: post #232

I agree this is bland corporate speak. But it reminded me of a question that's been floating around: A number of pundits, here on HN and elsewhere, keep referring to these large language models are "google killers." This just doesn't make sense to me. It feels like Google can easily pivot its ad engine to work with the AI-driven chat systems. It can augment answers with links to additional sources of information, be…

OpenAI has had huge mindshare with students recently. Every (ish) kid who writes an essay or needs information summarised is hitting ChatGPT. Kids are where change happens, ask Facebook. They get on new things instantly - within days we were reading reports of kids writing essays with the latest tool. Young people are also naturally viral, sharing the cool new tool with entire classes. This is a marketer’s dream. You don’t need to change how sluggish corporates work, just focus on kids and watch them work.

Google has to fight to get that mindshare back.

Not sure I’d be building my company on the ADHD-fueled Google roundabout that generates and destroys systems monthly. You just know whatever they release is someone’s promotion project, until it’s in GA.