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ChatGPT Search

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Re: ChatGPT Search

#621

Post by ta-run »

qilo wrote: post #610
GolfPopper wrote: post #602

Every time I see one of these topics, I go ask chat GPT a question to which I know the answer on a topic where I would like to be able to get useful answers to similar questions that I do not know the answer to. This time it was, "Did Paul Edwin Zimmer write a fourth Dark Border novel?" (Real answer: Yes, Ingulf the Mad . You can find the answer on his Wikipedia page.[1]) ChatGPT's[2] answer: "Yes, Paul Edwin Zimmer…

Here's what ChatGPT 4o mini (free) answered to me to the same question: No, Paul Edwin Zimmer did not write a fourth novel in the Dark Border series. The trilogy consists of "The Dark Border," "The Dark Border: The Return," and "The Dark Border: The Reckoning." After these, he focused on other projects and did not continue the series.

Here's o1-preview after thinking for 7 seconds,

> As of my knowledge cutoff in October 2023, Paul Edwin Zimmer did not publish a fourth novel in the Dark Border series. The series comprises three books: > 1. The Lost Prince (1982) > 2. King Chondos' Ride (1982) > 3. A Gathering of Heroes (1987) > > Paul Edwin Zimmer had plans to continue the series, but he passed away in 1997 before any additional novels were completed or published. There have been no posthumous releases of a fourth Dark Border novel. If there have been developments after October 2023, I recommend checking recent publications or official announcements for the most up-to-date information.

Re: ChatGPT Search

#622

Post by pama »

qilo wrote: post #610
GolfPopper wrote: post #602

Every time I see one of these topics, I go ask chat GPT a question to which I know the answer on a topic where I would like to be able to get useful answers to similar questions that I do not know the answer to. This time it was, "Did Paul Edwin Zimmer write a fourth Dark Border novel?" (Real answer: Yes, Ingulf the Mad . You can find the answer on his Wikipedia page.[1]) ChatGPT's[2] answer: "Yes, Paul Edwin Zimmer…

Here's what ChatGPT 4o mini (free) answered to me to the same question: No, Paul Edwin Zimmer did not write a fourth novel in the Dark Border series. The trilogy consists of "The Dark Border," "The Dark Border: The Return," and "The Dark Border: The Reckoning." After these, he focused on other projects and did not continue the series.

ChatGPT with search:

Yes, Paul Edwin Zimmer wrote a fourth novel in his Dark Border series titled Ingulf the Mad, published in 1989. This installment focuses on the characters Ingulf Mac Fingold and Carrol Mac Lir, detailing their meeting and the acquisition of their mystical swords. Notably, Istvan Divega, the protagonist of the earlier books, does not appear in this novel.

Re: ChatGPT Search

#623

Post by zbentley »

_bin_ wrote: post #328
freediver wrote: post #241

Been thinking about this a lot [1]. Will this fundamentally change how people find and access information? How do you create an experience so compelling that it replaces the current paradigm? The future promised in Star Trek and even Apple's Knowledge Navigator [2] from 1987 still feels distant. In those visions, users simply asked questions and received reliable answers - nobody had to fact-check the answers ever. C…

I hope we see more evolution of options before it does. Hard to articulate this without it becoming political, but I've seen countless examples both personally and from others of ChatGPT refusing to give answers not in keeping with what I'd term "shitlib ethics". People seem unwilling to accept that a system that talks like a person may surface things they don't like. Unless and until an LLM will return results from…

I buy that there's bias here, but I'm not sure how much of it is activist bias. To take your example, if a typical user searches for "is ___ a Nazi", seeing Stormfront links above the fold in the results/summary is going to likely bother them more than seeing Mother Jones links. If bothered by perceived promotion of Stormfront, they'll judge the search product and engage less or take their clicks elsewhere, so it behooves the search company to bias towards Mother Jones (assuming a simplified either-or model). This is a similar phenomenon to advertisers blacklisting pornographic content because advertisers' clients don't want their brands tainted by appearing next to things advertisers' clients' clients ethically judge.

That's market-induced bias--which isn't ethically better/worse than activist bias, just qualitatively different.

In the AI/search space, I think activist bias is likely more than zero, but as a product gets more and more popular (and big decisions about how it behaves/where it's sold become less subject to the whims of individual leaders) activist bias shrinks in proportion to market-motivated bias.

Re: ChatGPT Search

#624

Post by whiplash451 »

The whole thing smells less like search and a lot more like “letting users discover publishers” and “publishers discover new audiences”.

We all know how this is going to end.

Re: ChatGPT Search

#625

Post by dyauspitr »

thefourthchime wrote: post #307
whizzter wrote: post #300

This is probably Google's Altavista moment, by making their results crappier by the year in search of Ad dollars everyone has felt that there is a potential for search to be better and once that becomes available they'll be in a continious game of catch-up. Yes, Google has their own AI divisions, tons of money and SEO is to blame for part of their crappiness. But they've also _explicitly_ focused on ad-dollars over a…

Google's SEO almost killed the web, ChatGPT Search will finish the job.

In essence there is no “objective” algorithm. It’s a mish mash of random black box patterns that we hope delivers the right answer. It probably will most of the time but it will be gamed hard and it’s going to be hard to undo changes in gamified models.

Re: ChatGPT Search

#626

Post by klabb3 »

hightrix wrote: post #526
janalsncm wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no doubt that Google’s search team is optimizing for the best results. The problem is their ads team is optimizing for revenue. You can’t optimize for two things at the same time without compromising (the optimum is the Pareto frontier).

In my opinion, the issue is that the user's definition of "best results" and Google's definition do not align, including the Search team. Google's incentives are very different than user's needs.

Of course. But this will be true for OpenAI and all other AI players as well. During the honeymoon phase user needs matter, that’s how they get you. Comparing a company in the free-money phase with one in the value extraction phase is apples to oranges.

Re: ChatGPT Search

#627

Post by det2x »

trump2025 wrote: post #209

This might be unpopular opinion but it really isn't as big of a deal as OpenAI makes it out to be (like their previous announcements) The truth is, I haven't used ChatGPT at all since spring of this year. Claude's Sonnet 3.5 has replaced it. I pay very little attention to what OpenAI releases and simply waits for Anthropic to implement it. I also started using Gemini which already outperforms perplexity and this and…

People here seem to forget how much the average consumer uses ChatGPT. You see it online all the time people saying how they use ChatGPT to answer all their questions, do their writing for them, heck some even offload their thinking to ChatGPT.

It's not looking good for Google. I'd hope Anthropic and Gemini could capture more consumer market share from OpenAI but it's not looking good. Tell the average person about Claude or Gemini and the only thing you'll hear is "oh so like ChatGPT" artifacts would not be enough to convince them.

I don't think OpenAI dominance in consumer benefits anyone in the long run.

Re: ChatGPT Search

#628

Post by spauldo »

janalsncm wrote: post #469
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic innovator’s dilemma. The politics of Google make launching a search competitor impossible.

Exactly. That’s why I never understood Gemini. It is in a zero-sum game with Search.

Google is trying to beat potential competitors to the punch. They hold the search market, but if people start querying AI instead of searching they need a product in that space of they'll lose their lead.

I just got back from a job where my tech used AI on his phone every time he needed to search for something. The results were hilariously bad, but if things keep improving one day they might not be. Google needs to be ready for that.

Re: ChatGPT Search

#629

Post by amiantos »

101008 wrote: post #444
amiantos wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I publish my content "for free" because I want to spread knowledge and information, or promote a topic or interest I enjoy, and monetization has never been a priority for me. I know that I am not alone. The urge to create does not depend on a need for money. I am happy for my websites to be picked up by Perplexity or ChatGPT because I want more people to see/learn/hear about the things I care about. If someone only c…

I said "or any other reasons" because I was in a hurry. Internet existed way before ads, I agree, but even then you wanted people to visit your site to see what you wrote. Maybe to become an expert in a topic, maybe to feel better, but you want people to know who did it. That's why websites used to have a webmaster and info about that particular person. If people stop visiting websites because LLM give them what they…

What you describe in your last paragraph is still an evolution, not an extinction or disappearance. Fan/stan culture is absolutely huge on social media, where it has thrived, with single-person-ran stan accounts becoming as big or bigger than the heyday of blogging or fansites. So I just think we disagree on some foundational level.

Re: ChatGPT Search

#630

Post by loveparade »

freediver wrote: post #241

Been thinking about this a lot [1]. Will this fundamentally change how people find and access information? How do you create an experience so compelling that it replaces the current paradigm? The future promised in Star Trek and even Apple's Knowledge Navigator [2] from 1987 still feels distant. In those visions, users simply asked questions and received reliable answers - nobody had to fact-check the answers ever. C…

I couldn't agree more. Neither LLMs or search engines yield reliable answers due to the ML model and misaligned incentives respectively. Combining the two is a shortsighted solution that doesn't fix anything on a fundamental level. On top of that we have the feedback loop. LLMs are used to search the web and write the web, so they'll just end up reading their own (unreliable) output over time.

What we need is an easier way to verify sources and their trustworthiness. I don't want an answer according to SEO spam. I want to form my own opinion based on a range of trustworthy sources or opinions of people I trust.

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