I'm sharing a name and surname with a (Bulgarian)
criminal. Not sure what to do since it's not a problem so far and google doesn't show any of my pictures.
Google turned me into a serial killer
281–290 of 313 posts
Re: Google turned me into a serial killer
#282the best google result I ever saw was "disney children songs" with a google image search returning a very explicit pornographic picture.... I have no idea whether this is result of deliberate bombing or maybe something else. This does not surprise me at all - as I've seen completely wrong results for many other things...wrong years...wrong names...associated with people or events....
Re: Google turned me into a serial killer
#283Google's Knowledge Graph info boxes are automatically-generated and littered with errors. I've been burned twice on operating hours, once for my local bank and once for a convenience store, driving over each time only to find the place closed. In both cases, the correct hours were posted on the business's website. I've also seen bad KG results for medical conditions, listing the wrong symptoms or describing easily-tr…
Technology Connections had a great observation about this in his video about touch lamps: the problem with Google's knowledge graph is that it takes everything it reads on the internet at face value. https://youtu.be/TbHBHhZOglw?t=58 (0:58 through 4:20)
Worth watching for the capacitater joke alone
Re: Google turned me into a serial killer
#284News at 11: Google search results are now almost as bad as what they replaced, sometimes worse. I've said some time ago already that there is a multi billion niche waiting for whoever wants to do what Google used to do: - input field in middle of page - user types text into field - software shows list of pages that contain said text. Modifiers can be used to influence exactly how exactly the matching will be - the co…
I'm still sad that runnaroo went away as it felt like searching google felt like 10 years ago.
Re: Google turned me into a serial killer
#285You should seriously consider suing for defamation if this isn't fixed within a few days. This is an egregious error, especially if it was done by an automated system (and this could be a systemic issue affecting many others). I think you have a decent chance of getting a five figure+ settlement from this. Talk to a lawyer about your options. EDIT: When I search "Hristo Georgiev" (from US IP) there is no longer an im…
I wonder if Wikipedia would have a cause of action here too; they're similarly shown to be falsely accusing a person via the inclusion of a photo which is not in their article.
Why is the top thread on HN about everybody suing everybody? Geez people, calm down.
Nobody was hurt, nobody suffered any loss, we all had a good laugh, and hopefully we all learned a lesson about what technology does, which responsibilities we all have in building better systems, and that humans, when building such systems, make mistakes. Nobody had malicious intent, on the contrary, the intent was to provide people with information when searching for it (whether in the name of selling ads or not is a different question).
Why do we need to pull lawyers and courts into this? Lawyers cost a lot of money and judges should not have to waste their time with this kind of thing. There are actual criminals out there, let lawyers and judges focus their energy on those.
P.S.: Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending that it happened. Of course it's bad, needs to be fixed, and be prevented for next time. But screaming "sue them!" just feels like dramatically overboard.
Re: Google turned me into a serial killer
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d push back on the idea that human curation is infeasable at Google’s scales. It might be more costly, but remember that Wikipedia did roughly the same task (accurate-enough text + image descriptions for every reasonable topic) with only volunteer time. There are under 10 million wiki pages, and nobody would claim English Wikipedia has any major uncovered areas. For a large-but-doable investment of, say, a billion…
Wikipedia relies on a vast army of unpaid volunteers. Google would never be able to buy as much time and effort, even with their trillions of dollars. That's why they are actively using Wikipedia (and Wikidata) data. And they also import errors and vandalism, and it takes much longer to fix errors than on Wiki, because see above. > a billion USD, Google could spend $100 worth of human curation per Wikipedia topic $10…
> $100 would buy how much? Probably 30 minutes of my time, if I'm feeling very generous.
You're not the only one who can do the job, of course.
Re: Google turned me into a serial killer
#287Google's Knowledge Graph info boxes are automatically-generated and littered with errors. I've been burned twice on operating hours, once for my local bank and once for a convenience store, driving over each time only to find the place closed. In both cases, the correct hours were posted on the business's website. I've also seen bad KG results for medical conditions, listing the wrong symptoms or describing easily-tr…
The even uglier aspect of this, I think, is that Google is trying to keep you on their site and discourage you from visiting the authoritative site. That is classic middleman (unwanted intermediary) behaviour. Google produces no content but they sure interested in everyone else's.
Re: Google turned me into a serial killer
#288Google's Knowledge Graph info boxes are automatically-generated and littered with errors. I've been burned twice on operating hours, once for my local bank and once for a convenience store, driving over each time only to find the place closed. In both cases, the correct hours were posted on the business's website. I've also seen bad KG results for medical conditions, listing the wrong symptoms or describing easily-tr…
This is not true. While the content may initially be auto-generated, the Google KG is worked on extensively by real people. There are regional teams which work to verify and source the information that is out there. My sister works on the traditional Chinese team (mostly out of Taiwan or Taiwanese ABCs). These teams, as far as I know, are WFH contract workers.
Real people or not, I've been burned by false opening hours on google maps so many times I will never trust it again. I'd rather spend 20 seconds extra to visit the official webpage rather than a 25% chance of traveling half an hour to realize it's closed. Even if extensive work by a human team can reduce this to a 10% chance it's still not worth my trouble.
As the old adage goes. The only thing worse than no documentation is outdated/incorrect documentation.
Re: Google turned me into a serial killer
#289Well dressed serial killer!
Re: Google turned me into a serial killer
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's still Google's fault. If their service is providing out-of-date information, it's their fault. Huh? If the business owners aren't updating the correct info in My Business, how can that possibly be Google's fault?
Because this means My Business is not fit for purpose. Google is a web search engine, not a Google proprietary DB search engine.
Google is an advertising company.. not a search engine