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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

#221

Post by skydhash »

maximinus_thrax wrote: post #160
threeseed wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that 90% of Reddit isn't garbage. It's really useful. Problem is Google can't tell what is garbage or not. No LLM can.

> Except that 90% of Reddit isn't garbage. It's really useful. Citation needed. I've been a Reddit user since its inception and honestly except for niche hobby subreddits, Reddit is mostly low effort garbage, bots and rehashed content. I'd wager that mainstream subreddits are 99% garbage for training an LLM for anything other than shitposting.

Pretty much. There were some good information, and even book worthy ones. But they were the ones that bubble to the top in helpful and knowledgeable communities. The rest is junk.

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

#222

Post by astrange »

39896880 wrote: post #183
rurp wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't need "hypercapitalist surveillance" to show someone ads for a PS5 when they search for "buy PS5".

If they're doing surveillance they're not doing a good job of it, I make no effort to hide from them and approximately none of their ads are personalized to me. They are instead personalized to the search results instead of what they know from my history.

Meta is the one with highly personalized ads.

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

#224

Post by giantrobot »

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 don't know about bikewrench but AskHistorians is a useful source of knowledge because it is strongly moderated and curated. It's not just a bunch of random assholes spouting off on topics. Top level replies are unceremoniously removed if they lack sourcing or make unsourced/unsubstantiated claims. Top level posters also try to self-correct by clearly indicating when they're making claims of fact that are disputed or have unclear evidence.

OpenAI, Google, and the other LLMs-are-smart boosters seem to think because the Internet is large it must be smart. They're applying the infinite monkey theorem[0] incorrectly.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

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

#225

Post by astrange »

chx wrote: post #101
kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best trick the A.I. companies have pulled is getting us to refer to ‘bugs’ as ‘hallucinations.’ It sounds so much more sophisticated.

Ah, my friend it's not a bug It's a fundamental feature These LLMs can produce nothing else but since the bullshit they spew resembles an answer and sometimes accidentally collide with one, people tend to think it can give answers. But no. https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/112006855076082650 > You might be surprised to learn that I actually think LLMs have the potential to be not only fun but genuinely useful. “Show m…

This is irrelevant because the LLM is mostly not answering the question directly, it's summarizing text from web results. Quoting a joke isn't a hallucination.

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

#226

Post by astrange »

greg_V wrote: post #99
dgellow wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a trick to sound sophisticated. Hallucinations are more like a subcategory of bugs. The system is technically correctly generating, structuring, and presenting false information as fact.

Technically everything an LLM does is hallucination that happens to be on a scale between correct and non-correct. But only humans with knowledge can tell the difference, math alone can't. It's not even a bug: it's the defining feature of the technology!

Knowledge isn't sufficient to show something is false, since the knowledge can also be false. Insofar as it's important for it to be true, it needs to be continually verified as true, so that it's grounded in the real world.

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

#227

Post by [deleted] »

refulgentis wrote: post #202
notatoad wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's a search engine, not a question engine. for a lot of people and in a lot of use cases, it is a tool for answering questions. it generally works well for that. i get that the AI implementation sucks, but to suggest that people don't use google to find the answer to questions is absurd. that's absolutely what it's for.

Your interpretation is a bit strict, with little charity, its clear the poster means "i don't always just want an answer, i want to learn" I saw this over and over again working at products at G, someone would invoke some myth I can't quite remember about "Larry" had a vision of just giving the answer That's true but comes back to the central mistake Google makes: we don't actually have AGI, they can't actually answe…

[deleted]

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

#228

Post by astrange »

odyssey7 wrote: post #91

This is analogous to the Apple Maps launch failure. Except that Apple competes to make the best smartphone, and an iPhone was still valuable without Apple Maps. What happens to Google if it stops being able to compete in search?

Interesting thing about that is that Bing Maps was worse at the time, has never gotten better, and nobody noticed because nobody cares about it.

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

#229

Post by astrange »

ben_jones wrote: post #118
nialv7 wrote: post #106

I am not surprised that AI results are bad. I know they are bad. But that doesn't concern me because I expect it to get better. What concerns me is that Google would push this trash to the front page. What are they even thinking? Who gave go ahead on this?

Institutional investors panic > board panics > executives panic > evps panic and dictates incentives to ship AI > directors, ems, and below, who actually know how shit works, take a submissive role because they have mortgages in Mountain View to pay. That’s how it happens.

Not sure if anyone below director can afford a mortgage in Mountain View.

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

#230

Post by astrange »

cratermoon wrote: post #9
moomoo11 wrote: post #4

Just focus on making useful software to improve people’s lives. Holy fuck the last five years feel like such a waste.

Throwing good money after bad. Companies spent all that money on high end GPUs for crypto mining and that went bust, now gotta figure out something to do with the hardware to try to recoup some of the investment. Google pumped $1.5 Billion into crypto.

Google has TPUs.
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