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Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search

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Re: Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search

#181

Post by ta8645 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #173
ta8645 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? You have no way to know for sure if the human you ask the same question, does either. The question that started this thread was related to verifiability. And i still think it is a spurious complaint, given that we have exactly the same limitations when dealing with any human agent.

The problem of other minds is no reason to throw everything out the window. Humans are capable of being conscious of their reasoning processes; token-at-a-time predictive text models wired up as chatbots aren't capable of it. Your choice is between a possibly-mistaken, possibly-lying human, and a 100%-definitely incapable computer program. You don't know either "for sure", but you don't know that the external world e…

You've made some interesting points, which are debatable, for sure. But you've failed to address the question being asked about "verifiability".

Re: Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search

#182

Post by PillCosby »

ttGpN5Nde3pK wrote: post #176

My whole qualm with this AI integration into search engines: it's a search engine, not a question engine. I go to google to search the internet for something, not ask it a question. IMO, asking AI for something is a different task than searching the internet. It's sorta the same problem as if I go into a store and ask an employee where something is, and they reply with "well what are you trying to do?"

Like the overly helpful person at the local hardware store.

Re: Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search

#183

Post by 39896880 »

rurp wrote: post #161
39896880 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies in advance for this level pedantry: Google’s business is behavioral futures, not ads. Ads are just a means to that particular end.

Google exchanges advertisement placement for money. Ads are their business by any normal definition of that term.

Google’s transformation of conventional methods into means of hypercapitalist surveillance is both pervasive and insidious. The “normal definition of that term” hides this.

Re: Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search

#184

Post by mvdtnz »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #119
dgellow wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insane people at Google thought it would be a good idea to let Reddit of all places drive their AI search responses

Reddit is a magnificent source of useful knowledge. r/AskHistorians r/bikewrench To name just two. There is nothing even remotely comparable. But you need to be able to detect sarcasm and irony.

I have seen a tremendous amount of bad advice on bikewrench.

Re: Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search

#185

Post by mvdtnz »

verisimi wrote: post #171
jerf wrote: post #27

"Achieving the initial 80 percent is relatively straightforward since it involves approximating a large amount of human data, Marcus said, but the final 20 percent is extremely challenging. In fact, Marcus thinks that last 20 percent might be the hardest thing of all." 100% completely accurate is super-AI-complete. No human can meet that goal either. No, not even you, dear person reading this. You are wrong about som…

100% correct , 80% correct lol. The thing is that truth/reality is not a thing that is resolvable. Not even the scientific method has this sort of expectation! You can imagine getting close to those percentages, with regards to consensus opinion. That's just a question of educating people to respond appropriately.

No. Whether a person should eat a certain number of small rocks each day is not a matter of opinion, it's not a deep philosophical problem and it's not a question whose truth is not resolveable. You should not be eating rocks.

Re: Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search

#186

Post by zogrodea »

This approach to remove bad search suggestions manually reminded of a different approach Google once took, where they weren’t satisfied with manually tweaking search results but rather wanted to tweak the algorithm that produces these results when there were bad results.

'Around 2002, a team was testing a subset of search limited to products, called Froogle. But one problem was so glaring that the team wasn't comfortable releasing Froogle: when the query "running shoes" was typed in, the top result was a garden gnome sculpture that happened to be wearing sneakers. Every day engineers would try to tweak the algorithm so that it would be able to distinguish between lawn art and footwear, but the gnome kept its top position. One day, seemingly miraculously, the gnome disappeared from the results. At a meeting, no one on the team claimed credit. Then an engineer arrived late, holding an elf with running shoes. He had bought the one-of-a kind product from the vendor, and since it was no longer for sale, it was no longer in the index. "The algorithm was now returning the right results," says a Google engineer. "We didn't cheat, we didn't change anything, and we launched."'

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14009245

Re: Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search

#187

Post by eldaisfish »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #68
SoftTalker wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also surprised that training data are not much more curated. Encyclopedias, textbooks, reputable journals, newspapers and magazines make sense. But to throw in social media? Reddit? Seems insane.

The problem is that for some searches and answers Reddit or other social media is fine.

No, it isn't. Humans interacting with human-generated text is generally fine. You cannot unleash a machine on the mountains of text stored on reddit and magically expect it to tell fact from fiction or sarcasm from bad intent.

Re: Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search

#188

Post by dspillett »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #165
jerf wrote: post #27

"Achieving the initial 80 percent is relatively straightforward since it involves approximating a large amount of human data, Marcus said, but the final 20 percent is extremely challenging. In fact, Marcus thinks that last 20 percent might be the hardest thing of all." 100% completely accurate is super-AI-complete. No human can meet that goal either. No, not even you, dear person reading this. You are wrong about som…

> You are wrong about some basic things too Sure, but probably not "add glue to pizza to get the cheese to stick" wrong...

At least it suggested non-toxic glue… That suggests some context about recipes needing to be safe is somehow present in its model.

Re: Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search

#189

Post by bombela »

ttGpN5Nde3pK wrote: post #176

My whole qualm with this AI integration into search engines: it's a search engine, not a question engine. I go to google to search the internet for something, not ask it a question. IMO, asking AI for something is a different task than searching the internet. It's sorta the same problem as if I go into a store and ask an employee where something is, and they reply with "well what are you trying to do?"

I sometimes wants a search engine, sometimes a question engine. Likewise at the store.

Why not have both with a way to choose which one I want on the moment?

Re: Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search

#190

Post by dspillett »

krapp wrote: post #52
SoftTalker wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> putting glue on pizza to hold the cheese on It's actually not the dumbest idea I've heard from a real person. So no surprise it might be suggested by an AI that was trained on data from real people.

It wasn't an idea, though. It was a joke someone made on Reddit. If an AI can't tell the difference, it shouldn't be responsible for posting answers as authoritative.

It may not be a joke. Perhaps it has confused making food for eating with directions for preparing food for menu photography and other advertising.
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