Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 550 posts

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#91

Post by jurmous »

mattwad wrote: post #52
dilap wrote: post #31

Microsoft's integration of ChatGPT with Bing is really bad. No-one wants a busy search page with a side-bar of ChatGPT; what's the point of that? The correct interface for ChatGPT + search is just...ChatGPT. But it can also show you a list of web search results, when it's appropriate. A super-clean interface, that always shows you exactly what you want. That would be a killer feature and represent a real threat to Go…

As someone else said, the problem is ChatGPT lies straight to your face, whereas at least Google's answers are based on structured data by someone. It's traceable, whereas I would not trust ChatGPT ever to tell me the correct temperature to cook a steak.

I don’t know if you saw screenshots of the Prometheus model inside Bing. But it presents the sources with all its answers. It is no ChatGPT but a new model created for search.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#92

Post by adamrezich »

beamgirl wrote: post #41
Hamuko wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait for people to switch over from search engine optimization to AI model optimization: figuring out what kind of content you need to produce in order for Google's and OpenAI's models to deliver your message as gospel.

I'm actually expecting AI training data to turn into a snake eating its tail. I've been spending the last month not sleeping so I could try to get up to speed on deep learning, and my understanding is that AI trained on AI generated output becomes crap surprisingly quickly, and AI generated content is already starting to proliferate. I have no idea the extent to which this will hinder new models being generated, but…

the tinfoil take is that everyone in charge is fully aware of this eventual problem such that when it occurs, a solution will be presented: ubiquitous verifiable digital ID technology that's required to use popular social media services, such that everything that a Real Person posts will be signed with said digital ID, thus bringing about the end of online anonymity, and the death of the Internet as we presently know it.

idk, sounds plausible to me, the way things've been going.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#93

Post by krisroadruck »

doctor_eval wrote: post #30
RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #12

The gaming of SEO has been quietly destroying the utility of search writ large as a mechanism for quite a while. Over the last year, its become palpable. Google has such utility in this regard that in some cases, a hallucinating lie-machine offers better answer than an index of what information is available on the internet. This issue with with Googles failure to respond to the deluge of SEO driven content in their s…

> This issue with with Googles failure to respond to the deluge of SEO driven content in their searches. I’d argue that they even encouraged it.

Been working in SEO for nearly 13 years now - can confirm, a lot of SEO content spam is quite literally Googles fault. Google has forced just about every company to become a publisher as the only way to generate traffic to their site. I promise you the vast majority of companies don't want to spend the money pump out 4-30 pieces of mostly remixed/regurgitated content a month or screw around trying to attract links but this is how the algo works and you get what you measure.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#94

Post by wcoenen »

mattwad wrote: post #52
dilap wrote: post #31

Microsoft's integration of ChatGPT with Bing is really bad. No-one wants a busy search page with a side-bar of ChatGPT; what's the point of that? The correct interface for ChatGPT + search is just...ChatGPT. But it can also show you a list of web search results, when it's appropriate. A super-clean interface, that always shows you exactly what you want. That would be a killer feature and represent a real threat to Go…

As someone else said, the problem is ChatGPT lies straight to your face, whereas at least Google's answers are based on structured data by someone. It's traceable, whereas I would not trust ChatGPT ever to tell me the correct temperature to cook a steak.

"The new Bing also cites all its sources". That's a quote from the microsoft announcement.

https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/02/07/reinventing-sear...

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#95

Post by gipp »

luckylion wrote: post #61
massysett wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this sort of comment a lot, and I honestly don't know what it's talking about. What are people expecting out of Google that it's not delivering? It can only index stuff that's on the Web. Stuff on the Web is, contrary to what is popularly asserted, only a tiny fraction of all human knowledge. I think people are forgetting how bad search was before Google. Google drove Web directories to extinction. Remember Yah…

> What are people expecting out of Google that it's not delivering? Not optimize for "most documents indexed" but "highest quality of results". One of them encourages adding spam to their index, the other encourages removing spam from their index.

There are giant teams of people at Google whose only job is trying to define things like "spam" and "seo abuse" more precisely in more diverse contexts. There are equally large armies of people outside of it trying to outwit the first group and find more and more elaborate loopholes and workarounds.

HN is constantly pushing this notion that "spam" is some well-defined, solvable problem, so obviously Google wants it. That narrative just doesn't make sense from any angle. The notion that more click bait improves Google's bottom line is absurd

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#96

Post by paulpauper »

It's way too premature to say that ChatGPT will overtake Google, not to mention Google still derives about half of its income from Youtube and 3rd party publisher ads. Every few years the media runs with some story about how Bing, Yahoo or whatever will overtake Google. Never even comes close.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#97

Post by mywittyname »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #12

The gaming of SEO has been quietly destroying the utility of search writ large as a mechanism for quite a while. Over the last year, its become palpable. Google has such utility in this regard that in some cases, a hallucinating lie-machine offers better answer than an index of what information is available on the internet. This issue with with Googles failure to respond to the deluge of SEO driven content in their s…

I suspect the future is far more bleak. At least with "search results", users can scroll down past the SEO content to something more relevant. Once these new chatgpt models take over, it's winner-take-all for search results. Everyone is going to be throwing money at getting their message seen, since it will be the final word.

How much do you think companies are willing to spend to be the answer to, "what is the most reliable car?" or, "who should I vote for?"

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#98

Post by jay_kyburz »

ESMirro wrote: post #37
marricks wrote: post #7

I think it’s interesting to consider why touchscreen mobile phones won out over their predecessors. Touchscreens are the worst interface option. The feedback of feeling a button, or anything made for the job, is better than typing without specific feedback onto a screen. It won out because of you don’t have a set interface it’s bettor. Now for search, chat gpt will likely always be less reliable than a list of result…

Agreed, the whole “this is the new search” has perplexed me. Primarily the idea that this AI is supposed to be the single point of truth. A traditional search allows the user to review a variety of contexts and viewpoints. It’s highly concerning that this is something people seem to want (or at least, is being pushed onto them through marketing & hype), despite the huge outcry over algorithms and political agendas ov…

Fairly often I ask the Siri homepod thing a question. It's good at playing music, doing simple math, translating some things. It can sometimes read me a wikipedia page. Far to often it says "I have some web results for that question, ask again from your ipad". In those cases I wish she could summarize and read me the answer.

I can understand why some times you might just want a chat response to a question rather than a web search.

But I swear that if I even suspect Siri's response is influenced by advertising or endorses a product, I will take the homepod and punt it down the street.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#99

Post by snuxoll »

silisili wrote: post #54
mertd wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which three? Did they actually work with reasonable input latency?

I thought of OnLive, Shadow, and Geforce Now. The only one of those I'd used was Geforce Now, and found it very similar to Stadia wrt latency. Stadia had a much nicer interface, though.

PlayStation Now already existed for years as well.

Re: Is Google’s 20-year search dominance about to end?

#100

Post by jurmous »

dilap wrote: post #31

Microsoft's integration of ChatGPT with Bing is really bad. No-one wants a busy search page with a side-bar of ChatGPT; what's the point of that? The correct interface for ChatGPT + search is just...ChatGPT. But it can also show you a list of web search results, when it's appropriate. A super-clean interface, that always shows you exactly what you want. That would be a killer feature and represent a real threat to Go…

In the demo there was a clear Chat tab so you could go into chat mode. With the sources below each answer.

I guess they opted for the search results as the default with the chat on the side as the link list is the current interface.

Post reply on HN