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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

#221

Post by _false »

jerf wrote: post #211

Don't bet on AI staying clean. A lot of HN readers conceptualize the forces attacking the integrity of the search results as just some isolated people taking occasional potshots, and then maybe slinking away if their trick gets blocked. It is probably a lot more accurate to visualize the SEO industry as a Dark Google. Roughly as well resourced, with many smart people working on it full time, day in, day out, with inf…

I like the Dark Google metaphor, but SEO agencies being Google's real customers makes no sense to me.

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

#222

Post by sroussey »

Retric wrote: post #182
sroussey wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is obviously dangerous advice. Same advice as my trainer gives me.

Did they say: reduce their daily calorie intake to 1,500 - 1,800 calories or reduce their daily calorie intake by 1,500 - 1,800 calories These are very different answers, unless you’re consuming ~3,300 calories per day. These kinds of ‘subtle’ phrasing issue often results in AI mistake as both words are commonly used in advice but the context is really important.

Oh yeah! No, reduce to not reduce by. Though at the time I was eating a few things that had high calories that I didn’t realize so it would have been the same.

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

#223

Post by award_ »

jayd16 wrote: post #190
Beijinger wrote: post #183

This! "I don't want to watch a 10-minute video for a quick answer." And this: "OpenAI's search is becoming Google in the 2000s, if it can remain trustworthy." The problem I see: People use OpenAI/Perplexity for knowledge. Not to seek website. I think sooner or later, most website will block AI crawlers. What does a website gets out of it?

I'm still waiting for the AI service that turns those 10 minute videos into a text tutorial with photos. I think it's pretty damning that it's not a built in YouTube feature by now.

Lots of limitations here but they do offer an 'ask' button under some circumstances: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/14110396?hl=en

I've found it to be helpful in getting quicker information out of some 'review' style videos, where I can ask a few pointed questions and get answers faster than the narrator can get to that info. I hadn't found it to be wrong in my few attempts with it, but ymmv

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

#224

Post by BiteCode_dev »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #95
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalistic institutions have been requiring so much fact-checking, cross referencing and research lately it's a full time job to get informed. Whenever I read or hear anything from the medias now, I'm now always asking myself "what are their political inclinations? who is owning them ? what do they want me to believe? how much of a blind spot do they got ? how lazy or ignorant they are in that context ? etc." They…

What I was taught is this is just the labor of being critical, or just "having a critical mind about things." I can maybe see how it is exhausting, but I am not sure I understand the implication that it could be better or different. If it is particularly exhausting to you, it is perfectly fine to suspend your judgement about certain things!

If running a marathon is not exhausting to you, I don't think expecting the rest of the world to feel fresh after it is the right way to see the world.

Except given the noise/signal ratio and the sheer mass of information we have today, the workload is much higher than training for a 42 km run.

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

#225

Post by Ancalagon »

m_ke wrote: post #12
binkHN wrote: post #7

> Enter 2024 with AI. The top 20% of search results are a wall of text from AI... I'll be the contrarian here and say I actually like Google's AI Overview? For the first time in a long time, I can search for an answer to a question and, instead of getting annoying ads and SEO-optimized uselessness, I actually get an answer. Google is finally useful again. That said, once Google screws with this and starts making sear…

It would be great if it wasn't completely wrong 50% of the time.

Yeah the AI summaries are garbage still

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

#226

Post by chimpanzee »

griomnib wrote: post #207
chimpanzee wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For whatever it’s worth, in response to the same question posed by me (“what is the ld50 of caffeine”), Google’s AI properly reported it as 150-200 mg/kg. I asked this about 1 minute after you posted your comment. Perhaps it learned of and corrected its mistake in that short span of time, perhaps it reports differently on every occasion, or perhaps it thought you were a rat :)

LLM are non deterministic by nature.

Yes, that’s the main issue as ideally they wouldn’t be non-deterministic on well-established quantitative facts.

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

#227

Post by falcor84 »

bambax wrote: post #135
falcor84 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What will happen is that when you ask the AI to summarize a book to remove the fluff, it will inject random mentions of how the main character decided to drink a Coke. Let's go with truly open models! you say. That way we can be sure there are no shoddy behind-the-scenes deal going on between the model provider and some company or government. But the ads are in the training data , they are part of the fabric of the w…

I agree about the difficulty, but am optimistic that if enough of us wanted to achieve this, we could train it as a distributed effort, with the coordination of a non-profit like the EFF. The question is whether we care enough.

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

#228

Post by BiteCode_dev »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #103
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalistic institutions have been requiring so much fact-checking, cross referencing and research lately it's a full time job to get informed. Whenever I read or hear anything from the medias now, I'm now always asking myself "what are their political inclinations? who is owning them ? what do they want me to believe? how much of a blind spot do they got ? how lazy or ignorant they are in that context ? etc." They…

That's not new, it's always been the case.

The signal/noise ratio is getting lower and lower.

News is leaning more and more into entertainment.

You did have all of this before, but 24h news channel with empty content are reaching new magnitude, fox news types of outlet are getting bolder and bolder, manufacturing facts is now automated and mass-produced, consequences for scandals are at an all time low, concentration of power at an all time high, etc.

It was bad.

It is getting worse.

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

#229

Post by zaroth »

beejiu wrote: post #117
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…

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.

It’s not even advice, and it’s not wrong.
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