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Improving recommendation systems and search in the age of LLMs

eugeneyan.com

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Re: Improving recommendation systems and search in the age of LLMs

#3

Why we don’t have an LLM based search tool for our pc / smartphones? Specially for the smartphones all of your data is on the cloud anyway, instead of just scraping it for advertising and the FBI they could also do something useful for the user?

It doesn't solve any problem, you can just search your files using your prefered file explorer (crtl-f)

I'd assume most people organise their files so that they know where things are as well.

Re: Improving recommendation systems and search in the age of LLMs

#4
post #3

Why we don’t have an LLM based search tool for our pc / smartphones? Specially for the smartphones all of your data is on the cloud anyway, instead of just scraping it for advertising and the FBI they could also do something useful for the user?

It doesn't solve any problem, you can just search your files using your prefered file explorer (crtl-f) I'd assume most people organise their files so that they know where things are as well.

But file explorer does not read the actual files and build context. Even for pure text files that sometimes search functions can also access, I need to remember exactly the string of characters I am looking for.

I was hoping an LLM would have a context of all of my content (text and visual) and for the first time use my computers data as a knowledge base.

Queries like “what was my design file for that x service” ? Today it’s impossible to answer unless you have organized your data your self.

Why do we still have to organize our data manually?

Re: Improving recommendation systems and search in the age of LLMs

#5
post #3

Why we don’t have an LLM based search tool for our pc / smartphones? Specially for the smartphones all of your data is on the cloud anyway, instead of just scraping it for advertising and the FBI they could also do something useful for the user?

It doesn't solve any problem, you can just search your files using your prefered file explorer (crtl-f) I'd assume most people organise their files so that they know where things are as well.

> you can just search your files using your prefered file explorer

This only work if you remember specific substrings. An LLM (or some other language model) can summarize and interpolate. It can be asked to find that file that mentions a transaction for buying candy, and it has a fair chance to find it, even if none of the words "transaction", "buying" or "candy" are present in the file, e.g. it says "shelled out $17 for a huge pack of gobstoppers".

> I'd assume most people organise their files

You'll be shocked, but...

Re: Improving recommendation systems and search in the age of LLMs

#6

Why we don’t have an LLM based search tool for our pc / smartphones? Specially for the smartphones all of your data is on the cloud anyway, instead of just scraping it for advertising and the FBI they could also do something useful for the user?

This is roughly what Apple Intelligence was supposed to deliver but has yet to.

Re: Improving recommendation systems and search in the age of LLMs

#7
post #3

Why we don’t have an LLM based search tool for our pc / smartphones? Specially for the smartphones all of your data is on the cloud anyway, instead of just scraping it for advertising and the FBI they could also do something useful for the user?

It doesn't solve any problem, you can just search your files using your prefered file explorer (crtl-f) I'd assume most people organise their files so that they know where things are as well.

I think you are really wrong.

Most people I see at work and outside don’t care and they want stupid machine to deal with it.

That is why smartphones and tablets move away from providing „file system” access.

It is super annoying for me but most people want to save their tax form or their baby photo not even understanding each is different file type - because they couldn’t care less about file types let alone making folder structure to keep them organized.

Re: Improving recommendation systems and search in the age of LLMs

#10

Why we don’t have an LLM based search tool for our pc / smartphones? Specially for the smartphones all of your data is on the cloud anyway, instead of just scraping it for advertising and the FBI they could also do something useful for the user?

I found that ChatGPT or Claude are really good at music and shopping suggestions. Just chat with them about your tastes for a while, then ask for suggestions. Compared to old recommender systems this method allows much better user guidance.
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