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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

#301

Post by ajkjk »

jayd16 wrote: post #184
ajkjk wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google search had gotten so bad the AI overview is passable in comparison. They don't deserve credit for that! Search was better at getting useful information fifteen years ago than it does now. (And yes, the internet is way more full of garbage now--but they did that, they are responsible for that too!) ... unless you want anything like a perspective or an opinion on something, instead of a factual answer to a quest…

Why do we think the AI is any better? Isn't it based on the same dataset as search? How can it be anything but strictly worse for any given query?

Er.. I used it and that's what I thought?

Search goes out of its way to hide why I want and show me bullshit shopping ads and influencer videos. The overview at least tries to help. For now.

But I will emphasize: it's still not that helpful, it's just less corrupted than the main body results are... so far.

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

#302

Post by carlosjobim »

nicbou wrote: post #41
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…

The answers come from the same websites. They just get stripped of their traffic. As someone who puts a ton of work into writing accurate, helpful guides, it's devastating to have my work plundered like that. Once these monopolies have successfully established themselves, they will become indistinguishable from the ad-invested websites they replace. The only difference is that they will create no new information of t…

What value does the traffic have for you? Is it lost revenue from ads? Or are you selling something? If you're selling something, then the AIs could very well be giving you more sales than they take away.

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

#303

Post by nicbou »

carlosjobim wrote: post #302
nicbou wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answers come from the same websites. They just get stripped of their traffic. As someone who puts a ton of work into writing accurate, helpful guides, it's devastating to have my work plundered like that. Once these monopolies have successfully established themselves, they will become indistinguishable from the ad-invested websites they replace. The only difference is that they will create no new information of t…

What value does the traffic have for you? Is it lost revenue from ads? Or are you selling something? If you're selling something, then the AIs could very well be giving you more sales than they take away.

I guide immigrants who settle in Germany

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

#304

Post by LeroyRaz »

joe_the_user wrote: post #134
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Newspapers and other media have always had a political slant. But the more respected media have maintained rough factual accuracy because it enhances their impact and so their political slant. What's happened is that the income of media outlets has declined to the point that most can't get factual accuracy even if they want it.

Your claim that media outlets are no longer factual because they can't afford paying to be factual seems specious. They often make egregious errors that take a 5 minute Google to correct.

Instead of facts being unaffordable, it seems that lies and bias simply pay more (or at least the media outlets seem to think so).

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

#305

Post by scarface_74 »

vitaflo wrote: post #278
JustExAWS wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those people found you by randomly searching Google versus via links via your profile on social media?

All of them, because I'm not on any social media. I also mostly put obscure things on my website that aren't easily found elsewhere online, so very specific searches tend to end up on my site. Also probably why I get email from people visiting as it's one of the few places people can reference said info.

So you aren’t willing to put in the work necessary to get your site recognized in 2024 and you don’t see that as a problem?

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

#306

Post by nicbou »

JustExAWS wrote: post #152
wrs wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had a site (no time lately to maintain one) it would be because I wanted to inform people and contribute to the world’s accessible knowledge. I would want my information presented in context, accurately, the way I intended, not digested and reworded (often inaccurately) by Google.

And how likely is someone to find your site through search instead of word of mouth? I bet you if you had insightful posts on HN (not saying you don’t) and people knew you, you would get more traffic by putting a link in your profile here than people searching on Google.

I can answer that question with actual numbers: 90% of my traffic comes from search engines. The remaining 10% is much more time-consuming to acquire. It doesn’t help that external links are downranked by most social media sites.

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

#307

Post by firebaze »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #73

Once timeless facts will be solidified in AI training, like historical dates, laws of physics, maths formulas or specific programming API, there will be no reason to search for these things using Google. The web battle will then happen on this moving quickly, like the news. This will give immensely more power to the medias, and I fear that a lot given they have demonstrated time and again they can't be trusted with i…

They lost way too much trust across the board the last years, culminating in the Biden/Harris/Trump debacle.

Youtube/Instagram Reels/Tiktok is the (sad) future. "Classical" media is a zombie.

Google is deader than dead on the search front. But I think they'll go the IBM route, albeit more successful

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

#308

Post by richk449 »

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.

Is this really true? The linear algebra is deterministic, although maybe there is some chaotic behavior with floating point handling. The non deterministic part mostly comes from intentionally added randomness, which can be turned off right?

Maybe the argument is that if you turn off the randomness you don’t have an LLM like result any more?

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

#309

Post by disqard »

rkagerer wrote: post #74
scarface_74 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you monetizing your website? Is it with ads?

Who says they need to monetize it? Is that the only value we ascribe to traffic, now?

Indeed, this is what I likened to a "Dark Forest":

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42459246

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

#310

Post by carlosjobim »

nicbou wrote: post #303
carlosjobim wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What value does the traffic have for you? Is it lost revenue from ads? Or are you selling something? If you're selling something, then the AIs could very well be giving you more sales than they take away.

I guide immigrants who settle in Germany

Have you noticed a decline in sales from AIs? I'd think that for such a service, people who don't want to pay wouldn't pay you anyway even if they went to your website first for the information, and people who do want to pay will find your business through the AI.
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