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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

#111

Post by bigstrat2003 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #71
wwweston wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libraries and librarians are starting to seem very relevant again. As are journalistic institutions.

Unfortunately, many of the “journalistic” institutions are owned by large corporations who aren’t going to “speak truth to power” in fear of retribution. We just saw this with ABC News’s settlement with Trump because its owner Disney wanted to stay in his good graces. We also saw this with Bezos owner Washington Post

Let's be honest: the major journalistic outlets only "speak truth to power" when it means they get to criticize their outgroup. Which means any time Republicans have power, they're falling over themselves to speak up. But when Democrats have power, they are conspicuously silent. Time and time again this happens, and they have completely undermined their own credibility by doing so.

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

#112

Post by dijksterhuis »

alex_young wrote: post #96
echelon wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get very wrong and dangerous answers from AI frequently. I just searched "what's the ld50 of caffeine" and it says: > 367.7 mg/kg bw This is the ld50 of rats from this paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27461039/ This is higher than the ld50 estimated for humans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeinism > The LD50 of caffeine in humans is dependent on individual sensitivity, but is estimated to be 150–200 milli…

Hmm my search returns “between 150 to 200 mg per kilogram”, which is maybe more correct? Also, in what context is this dangerous? To reach dangerous levels one would have to drink well over 100 cups of coffee in a sitting, something remarkably hard to do.

> Also, in what context is this dangerous? To reach dangerous levels one would have to drink well over 100 cups of coffee in a sitting

some people use caffeine powder / pills for gym stuff apparently.

someone overdosed and died after incorrectly weighing a bunch of powder.

doubt it is a big leap to someone dying because they were told the wrong limits by google.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60570470

as ever, machine learning is not really suitable for safety/security critical systems / use cases without additional non-ML measures. it hasn’t been in the past, and i’ve seen zero evidence recently to back up any claim that it is.

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

#113

Post by wrs »

JustExAWS wrote: post #94
rkagerer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says they need to monetize it? Is that the only value we ascribe to traffic, now?

Either I’m monetizing my site and I care about traffic or why else would I care if people visit my site as long as information gets out there?

If I had a site (no time lately to maintain one) it would be because I wanted to inform people and contribute to the world’s accessible knowledge. I would want my information presented in context, accurately, the way I intended, not digested and reworded (often inaccurately) by Google.

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

#114

Post by XCabbage »

JustExAWS wrote: post #94
rkagerer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says they need to monetize it? Is that the only value we ascribe to traffic, now?

Either I’m monetizing my site and I care about traffic or why else would I care if people visit my site as long as information gets out there?

Building a professional reputation? Letting people contact you with feedback and improvement suggestions? Pure personal pride? Plenty of reasons to want your work to be attributed to you regardless of whether you're directly monetising people reading it.

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

#115

Post by bigstrat2003 »

wwweston wrote: post #26
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…

Of course the savvy are using LLMs now, but they’re also reckoning with two things: * you have to check an LLM result, especially if it cites something (because it may or may not exist) * you can’t cite an LLM result It’s a useful tool, but it lacks certain utility features that a useful web + effective search has. Or had.

> Of course the savvy are using LLMs now

I don't think this is true at all. It is people prone to hype, or who are naive, who are using LLMs. The savvy know that a tool which you have to verify every single time (because it isn't deterministic and makes shit up) isn't actually saving you any effort.

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

#116

Post by einpoklum »

> OpenAI's search is becoming Google in the 2000s

Google started going bad in the 2000s (albeit not as bad as now).

> if it can remain trustworthy.

At no point was it trustworthy - even if it were an abstract LLM, trust would be an issue; but this is the opaque product of a corporation heavily invested in by untrustworthy entities and people.

That does not mean it isn't often useful, but "trust" and "usefulness" are two very different things.

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

#117

Post by beejiu »

echelon wrote: post #70
warner25 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But "search" and "getting an answer to a question" are two different things, aren't they? I realize that the trend has been going this way for a long time - probably since Ask Jeeves started blurring the line - and this is indeed how a lot of people try / want to use search engines, but still... I wish that Google (and competitors) would have separate pages for something like "Ask Google" vs. traditional search (wher…

I get very wrong and dangerous answers from AI frequently. I just searched "what's the ld50 of caffeine" and it says: > 367.7 mg/kg bw This is the ld50 of rats from this paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27461039/ This is higher than the ld50 estimated for humans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeinism > The LD50 of caffeine in humans is dependent on individual sensitivity, but is estimated to be 150–200 milli…

Perhaps a more common question: "How many calories do men need to lose weight?"

Google AI responded: "To lose weight, men typically need to reduce their daily calorie intake by 1,500 - 1,800 calories"

Which is obviously dangerous advice.

IMO Google AI overviews should not show up for anything (a) medical or (b) numerical. LLMs just aren't safe enough yet.

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

#118

Post by falcor84 »

bambax wrote: post #45

> Does ChatGPT Search have trust? Open AI isn't monetizing its search just yet, but AI has its own issues with hallucinations. Everywhere where SEO people congregate, they talk only about this: how to produce content that will eventually end up in training data for LLMs, so that when you ask about anything remotely connected to a given brand, its products will show up in the response. Ads are bad enough today, but it…

This reminds me of that awesome analysis of all the speech of a diplomat's visit in Asimov's original Foundation book:

> Hardin threw himself back in the chair. “You know, that's the most interesting part of the whole business. I admit that I thought his Lordship a most consummate donkey when I first met him – but it turned out that he is an accomplished diplomat and a most clever man. I took the liberty of recording all his statements.”

>... When Houk, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications—in short all the goo and dribble—he found he had nothing left. Everything canceled out. Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn't say one damned thing, and said it so that you never noticed.

I'm pretty sure that we're now at the level of AI where it's possibly to fully automate such an analysis, such that even if the original content is entirely corrupted by product placement, the AI could cut it out to leave only the valuable information, if any remains. The only question is whether the AI will be on the user's side or the advertiser's side.

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

#119

Post by nicbou »

JustExAWS wrote: post #94
rkagerer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says they need to monetize it? Is that the only value we ascribe to traffic, now?

Either I’m monetizing my site and I care about traffic or why else would I care if people visit my site as long as information gets out there?

This whole website's raison d'être was to provide neutral and accurate information about German immigration.

> as long as information gets out there

A possibly incorrect summary of the information gets out there. Given how much nuance I weave into my content, and how much effort I put into getting the phrasing just right, it frustrates me to no end. There's a very high likelihood that AI could give someone an invalid answer _and_ put my name under it, surrounded by their ads.

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