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Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

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Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#31

Post by toddmorey »

binkHN wrote: post #7

> Enter 2024 with AI. The top 20% of search results are a wall of text from AI... I'll be the contrarian here and say I actually like Google's AI Overview? For the first time in a long time, I can search for an answer to a question and, instead of getting annoying ads and SEO-optimized uselessness, I actually get an answer. Google is finally useful again. That said, once Google screws with this and starts making sear…

For quick simple steps like how to get a Bluetooth keyboard into pairing mode, it seems to work really well. I hated the prior world where everyone attempted to hide the real answer 3/4ths of the way through a useless blog post or YouTube video.

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#32

Post by m0llusk »

fratlas wrote: post #2

People want to spend less time on a task. Whichever tool succeeds at this will win.

Time on task only matters for the lowest paid. At high levels robust, predictable, and other characteristics compete strongly for value. Do you want the most accurate medical diagnosis or the fastest?

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#33

Post by kijiki »

msoad wrote: post #17

I remember when the more tech savvy folks were migrating from Altavista and Yahoo to Google because they understood it is better sooner than others. The same thing is happening. I consider myself tech savvy (still!) and I have to admit that I rarely use Google for all sort of information. As a side note: I am using Safari and I noticed that Apple's search is also replacing my Google searches. In the past if I knew na…

Apple's search is Google search. Google pays Apple $20 billion a year for that.

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#34

Post by BadHumans »

RF_Savage wrote: post #4

The Yahooification of Googles search becomes more amusing when one considers that it is now led buy the dude who ran Yahoo search to the ground.

Not anymore. Prabhakar was promoted from Head of Search to Chief Technologist whatever that means.

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#35

Post by lelandfe »

RF_Savage wrote: post #4

The Yahooification of Googles search becomes more amusing when one considers that it is now led buy the dude who ran Yahoo search to the ground.

Prabhakar Raghavan was recently "promoted" out of that: https://www.wheresyoured.at/requiem-for-raghavan/

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#36

Post by pixelsort »

Of course OpenAI can't stuff their UI with ads yet. In the middle of escalating anti-AI sentiment due to the rapid slopification of the infosphere that they intiated? With cultural resentment growing over the devaluation of visual evidence? With video and audio modalities creating distrust and obsolescence in the creative class?

Google only had to provide superior value with a clean UI. OpenAI has to contend with normalizing the mechanisms that are upsetting the lives of the customer base that pays them; the customers they'll replace with ad servers as soon as it becomes prudent to start indicating their end-game.

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#38

Post by Analemma_ »

GiorgioG wrote: post #19
m_ke wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great if it wasn't completely wrong 50% of the time.

Describes my general experience with AI across the board. Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, etc. It’s like I’m talking to a genius toddler. With ChatGPT losing 5 billion dollars on 3.7B in revenue this is unsustainable. It feels like the dotcom bubble all over again.

This is true, but fairly or unfairly, asking a question to a chat bot feels like “opting in” to the possibility that the answers you get will be hallucinated garbage, in a way that doing a Google search does not. It’s a tough problem for Google to overcome— the fact that they will be held to a higher standard—- but that’s what it is: we have already learned to accept bullshit from LLMs as a fact of life, whereas on the top of Google results it feels like an outrage.

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#39

Post by bfrog »

Google in 2000s was excellent. Modern Google makes me feel like I’m a product being sold a lemon at a barb wire fenced used car lot. It’s horrible, the things being shown are horrible, and there’s questionable ethics and value to be had by even going there.

Re: Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s

#40

Post by nuforia »

GiorgioG wrote: post #19
m_ke wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great if it wasn't completely wrong 50% of the time.

Describes my general experience with AI across the board. Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, etc. It’s like I’m talking to a genius toddler. With ChatGPT losing 5 billion dollars on 3.7B in revenue this is unsustainable. It feels like the dotcom bubble all over again.

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