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Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

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Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#151

Post by macintux »

marcodiego wrote: post #23
cfeduke wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. If this were a couple of decades ago and this search were performed, the searcher may simply see zero results. This used to be an acceptable response from a search engine - unless there's some website that specifically contains the search term being sought, simply return zero results. Not thousands or tens of thousands results. What we get instead are incorrect results which are being presented as reasonable a…

I remember, in the 90's, I typed "hexdit" in altavista and spent the time visiting exactly 100 websites to find exactly the hex editor I was searching for. I remember the number exactly because it was in the last position (10) of the last page and there were 10 pages.

Ugh. I distinctly remember a dinner party in 1993-94 where we talked about how amazing the web was and how impossible it was to find anything. We discussed registered keywords a la AOL, and I’m sure someone suggested search engines would eventually solve it, but I certainly wouldn’t have wagered significant money on that based on Altavista.

When I discovered Google (I think it was running at beta.stanford.edu at the time) it was just short of a miracle.

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#152

Post by tambourine_man »

spullara wrote: post #123
drivebycomment wrote: post #4

This is a clear demonstration of the user's expectation of search having exceeded what's possible today. From the article: > Lets look at some examples. One of my favorite places in the world is Koh Lanta, Thailand. When traveling, I’m always on the lookout for places that give off the Koh Lanta vibe. What does that mean? Hard to say, exactly, but having tourist amenities without being touristy. Charming, slow, cheap…

GPT-3 prompt: I really love the vibe of Koh Lanta in Thailand. It has tourist amenities without really being touristy. I find it charming, slow and cheap. Is there a place in Croatia like it? Completion: There is no exact place in Croatia that has the same vibe as Koh Lanta in Thailand. However, there are places in Croatia that have a similar charm and slower pace. These places include Hvar Island, Korcula Island, an…

GPT-3 and DALL-E scare me. This is too good.

I wonder how long it will take before we have a GPT-3 bot commenting here on HN

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#153

Post by alphabetting »

> Why don’t other search engines compete on search results? It can’t be hard to do better than Google for the long tail.

Search is ridiculously hard. Everyone underestimates the forces you are up against with SEO/Spam industry. Microsoft has invested into Bing for 13 years and has no market share and the #1 search term is "google."

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#154

Post by kccqzy »

drivebycomment wrote: post #4

This is a clear demonstration of the user's expectation of search having exceeded what's possible today. From the article: > Lets look at some examples. One of my favorite places in the world is Koh Lanta, Thailand. When traveling, I’m always on the lookout for places that give off the Koh Lanta vibe. What does that mean? Hard to say, exactly, but having tourist amenities without being touristy. Charming, slow, cheap…

And HN just destroyed this search. When I tried the same search, HN is on the front page now.

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#155

Post by codexon »

warning26 wrote: post #22

There's a lot of Google hate on HN, and much of it is deserved, but I think this particular trend of blaming Google for the prevalence of useless clickbait articles is a bit much. The real answer to this question is that walled-garden social media took over everything. The much-pined-for "Old Google" worked because people used to actually create content on their own sites, and not just post it on walled garden monoli…

The reason why there's more content on walled garden social media instead of personal websites is in no small part Google's fault and not just because of Facebook and Twitter.

Google released several updates (such as "Panda") that greatly lowers the rank of domains that aren't linked to by major domains they deem to be trusted, such as those with edu or gov TLDs or whatever whitelist of domains they decided to add. There have also been updates that specifically lowers the rank of websites that are running forum or blog software. This was probably done to fight spammers but it has effectively killed off the long tail of topics.

This is admittedly speculation since the inner workings of Google search are not released to the public. But these findings have been corroborated by others on the internet.

I used to have a blog and several forums that used to rank highly for some niche keywords and over the years the search rankings started to drop off the front page while a single reddit comment with no content mentioning the same keywords would be #1.

I'd say that Google is very much to blame for this situation as they took the easy way out to fight spammers.

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#156

Post by Li7h »

tambourine_man wrote: post #152
spullara wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPT-3 prompt: I really love the vibe of Koh Lanta in Thailand. It has tourist amenities without really being touristy. I find it charming, slow and cheap. Is there a place in Croatia like it? Completion: There is no exact place in Croatia that has the same vibe as Koh Lanta in Thailand. However, there are places in Croatia that have a similar charm and slower pace. These places include Hvar Island, Korcula Island, an…

GPT-3 and DALL-E scare me. This is too good. I wonder how long it will take before we have a GPT-3 bot commenting here on HN

How do you know there's not one already?

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#157

Post by tambourine_man »

Li7h wrote: post #156
tambourine_man wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPT-3 and DALL-E scare me. This is too good. I wonder how long it will take before we have a GPT-3 bot commenting here on HN

How do you know there's not one already?

Whistleblowing is usually a way to redirect attention.

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#159

Post by mattkrause »

spullara wrote: post #131
soulofmischief wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next problem is verifying all of that information. It will require multiple dozen auxillary Google searches and reading through countless articles and message boards. GPT-3 is a great research tool as a brainstorming engine, but sadly cannot currently be formally trusted to output truthful information, even with conditioning. It takes someone with prior knowledge or subsequent research in order to make use of the…

Even if you got the info straight from another human being I can't imagine anyone would take it at face value and just schedule their trip.

I wouldn't buy the tickets sight unseen, but I would trust you that it's actually a real place, actually in Croatia, and not being conflated with similar-sounding places.

Humans, unless they're disturbed or malicious, tend not to hallucinate things out of whole cloth.

Re: Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google

#160

Post by megablast »

vector_spaces wrote: post #69
drivebycomment wrote: post #4

This is a clear demonstration of the user's expectation of search having exceeded what's possible today. From the article: > Lets look at some examples. One of my favorite places in the world is Koh Lanta, Thailand. When traveling, I’m always on the lookout for places that give off the Koh Lanta vibe. What does that mean? Hard to say, exactly, but having tourist amenities without being touristy. Charming, slow, cheap…

I know that search engines are optimized to facilitate commerce, and yes, depending on the extent to which you're bought into their ecosystem, Google probably knows a lot about you, like, for instance, whether or not you've been to Koh Lanta before as a tourist, but good lord what a self-centered way (for the author of this blog post, not the parent comment) to think about this. Like, Koh Lanta is surely not just a v…

Can you think of a better question??
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