Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by Doctor_Fegg » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 11:19 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #264

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…

> we're not the real customers any more. Were we ever? I didn’t pay for search. I don’t pay for email.

I pay for both now (Kagi, Runbox). It’s just so much better.

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

#362

Post by nox101 » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 11:21 PM UTC

Lewton wrote: post #340

potsandpans wrote: post #42

Just sharing an anecdote: I was searching for a quote that I'd heard in an audiobook the other day. I just had the general paraphrase, and didn't feel like scanning through the chapters to go find it. This was a somewhat obscure source. Google had just straight garbage for me. The quote was political in nature, and I felt like the results were fighting general tone-policing filters and were tuned for recent events. o…

A week ago, I was looking for the name of a semi obscure late 90ies computer game. Google could not help me given the description i gave Described it to ChatGPT, and we had a back and forth where I explained why the games it suggested me weren’t right, it eventually found the correct game (Nocturne) and was able to explain to me that half of the things I remembered from the game were just plain wrong, and that’s why…

I have tried the same, and had ChatGPT utterly fail.

> me: what's the relatively recent movie with a pig on the movie poster

> gpt: The movie you're referring to is likely "Pig," a 2021 American drama film. It stars Nicolas Cage as a truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregon wilderness. He embarks on a quest to find his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped. The film was directed by Michael Sarnoski .

> me: no, that movie does not have a pig on the poster

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_(2021_film)#/media/File:Pi...

> gpt: My mistake, let's correct that. Given your description, another film that fits the criteria of having a pig on its movie poster and is relatively recent is "The Menu" (2022). This film features a darkly comedic and thrilling story set against the backdrop of an exclusive restaurant on a remote island, where a young couple experiences a very unusual dining experience. The pig on the poster is part of the film's intriguing promotional material, hinting at the film's critique of culinary culture and excess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menu_(2022_film)#/media/Fi...

> me: No, that move does not have a pig poster

> gpt: It seems I misunderstood your initial request. After a more detailed search, I couldn't find a recent movie specifically featuring a pig prominently on its movie poster beyond the titles we've discussed. Could there be any other details about the movie you're thinking of that might help narrow it down? For instance, any specific elements of the plot, actors involved, or even the genre might provide more clues to identify the correct film.

movie I was looking for was "The Hunt": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunt_%282020_film%29#/medi...

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

#363

Post by silisili » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 11:21 PM UTC

potsandpans wrote: post #42

Just sharing an anecdote: I was searching for a quote that I'd heard in an audiobook the other day. I just had the general paraphrase, and didn't feel like scanning through the chapters to go find it. This was a somewhat obscure source. Google had just straight garbage for me. The quote was political in nature, and I felt like the results were fighting general tone-policing filters and were tuned for recent events. o…

Interesting that worked. My experience with what I consider a similar type thing has been dismal. Perhaps not similar enough?

One thing I wish either was better at is finding things from fuzzy or minimal descriptions. My memory is pretty bad but I often want to find a movie I'd watched in the past.

I often remember little bits and pieces or themes from a movie or show and curious what it was from, and both Google and ChatGPT are absolutely terrible at this.

Compared to say, r/tipofmytongue, which is absolutely fantastic at such things. Sure, it's AI vs humans, but the difference in ability between the two on such queries is pretty staggering.

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

#364

Post by aleph_minus_one » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 11:22 PM UTC

> And even these ads weren't that bad. What made Google successful was showing ads you wanted to see. I'm searching for a bottle of wine, and ads for bottles of wine were shown to me.

Even at that time, Google hardly ever showed me ads that I wanted to see (even though in former days, Google's ads were less intrusive than they are today): as I sometimes mention on Hacker News, most advertising networks have difficulties to "pigeon-hole" me into interest groups - many interests of me are somewhat niche.

For example many Google searches that I do are about scientific topics from my areas of expertise - this is a rather hard topic for advertisisers (though it is plausible that it might be a lucrative topic for anybody who is capable to monetize on people like me).

On the other hand, if (rather accidentally ;-) ) Google's advertising/interesting sorting algorithm actually "finds" some interest of me which can be "monetized" via ads that try to sell me something, it's the common case that I have already bought such a product recently - in such a situation I clearly don't need another piece of the product. The reason for this is simple: after I bought the product, I have to understand some of the product's "complicated convoluted details", so a lot of Google search queries are of the type "[product name] [potential problem that I have with the product]". Thus, I do a lot more Google search queries for the product after I bought it.

It should be obvious that for the ad to pay off for the advertisier, it should be shown before I buy the product - thus Google has to be capable of interpreting the quite weak signals that might show that in the future I might want to buy such a product, and not the strong signals that Google sees in the weeks after my purchase.

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

#365

Post by paradox460 » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 11:26 PM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #345

potsandpans wrote: post #42

Just sharing an anecdote: I was searching for a quote that I'd heard in an audiobook the other day. I just had the general paraphrase, and didn't feel like scanning through the chapters to go find it. This was a somewhat obscure source. Google had just straight garbage for me. The quote was political in nature, and I felt like the results were fighting general tone-policing filters and were tuned for recent events. o…

There’s so much low effort, low hanging fruit that Google could do to improve results, that I just assume they've realized those things are unprofitable for them. I mean just de-ranking any article with an affiliate link alone would skyrocket the relevance of what content you surface on search. The problem for Google is, they’re incentivized to make the results worse than the SERP ads. If the organic results are too…

It's intentional.

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

Traditional search still works. Ask anyone who uses kagi. Google makes more money (for now) with garbage search, so they're optimizing for garbage. Thing is, garbage in, garage out, and it will eventually catch up with them (might already have given the disparity between Gemini and Claude/cgpt)

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

#366

Post by jvanderbot » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 11:29 PM UTC

nox101 wrote: post #362

Lewton wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A week ago, I was looking for the name of a semi obscure late 90ies computer game. Google could not help me given the description i gave Described it to ChatGPT, and we had a back and forth where I explained why the games it suggested me weren’t right, it eventually found the correct game (Nocturne) and was able to explain to me that half of the things I remembered from the game were just plain wrong, and that’s why…

I have tried the same, and had ChatGPT utterly fail. > me: what's the relatively recent movie with a pig on the movie poster > gpt: The movie you're referring to is likely "Pig," a 2021 American drama film. It stars Nicolas Cage as a truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregon wilderness. He embarks on a quest to find his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped. The film was directed by Michael Sarnoski . > me:…

Inb4 we all tell you you're using it wrong. There are certainly better ways to do this, but this is really the major thing that drives me nuts. No matter how many times I tell some LLM I want it to ask clarifying questions to provide better answers, it just won't. You end up doing exactly this, guessing what information might trigger the right recall.

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

#367

Post by smallmancontrov » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 11:34 PM UTC

potsandpans wrote: post #42

Just sharing an anecdote: I was searching for a quote that I'd heard in an audiobook the other day. I just had the general paraphrase, and didn't feel like scanning through the chapters to go find it. This was a somewhat obscure source. Google had just straight garbage for me. The quote was political in nature, and I felt like the results were fighting general tone-policing filters and were tuned for recent events. o…

Google can't even find exact matches most of the time and its heuristic matches are just not as good as the transformers.

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

#368

Post by trollied » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 11:39 PM UTC

NBJack wrote: post #314

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 very much agree this is effectivity a 'honeymoon' period. Expect the SEO collective to shift focus on AI if the search approach becomes profitable in a few years. That said, given an "AI search" is estimated to be at least ten times [0] as expensive per query than traditional search, I hope you like ads. For those hoping to see that cost to go down, training costs for improved models have instead been going up . [1…

Expect ads to be interspersed with ChatGPT replies in the near future. It's another place to advertise.

Must go look for a patent on it, there will be one. (lol)

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

#369

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 11:43 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #219

TeMPOraL wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't being undermined and dismantled, they're dying of the same cancer search is, and one they contracted voluntarily: advertising .

Libraries are?

I meant journalistic institutions.

Libraries themselves are a special thing - they've been invented before intellectual property was a thing, and have been attacked by IP proponents ever since. In this way, they're very much like LLMs, and many of the arguments against LLMs trained on copyrighted material apply just as much to public libraries. Oh the irony.

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

#370

Post by griomnib » Sat, Dec 28, 2024, 11:53 PM UTC

hansvm wrote: post #343

griomnib wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally have DistilBERT models that can do this exact task in ~14ms on an NVIDIA A6000. I don’t know the precise performance per watt, but it’s really fucking low. I use LLM to help with training data as they are great at zero shot, but after the training corpora is built a small, well trained, model will smoke an LLM in classification accuracy and are way faster - which means you can get scale and low carbon cos…

Thanks for providing a concrete model to work with. Compared to GPT3.5, the number you're looking for is ~0.04%. I pointed out the napkin math because 0.00000001% was so obviously wrong even at a glance that it was hurting your claim. And, yes, purpose-built models definitely have their place even with the advent of LLMs. I'm happy to see more people working on that sort of thing.

I applaud you doing the math! Proves you aren’t an LLM :-D