6 ms·

Good comparison. Reminds me of an analogy I like to make of today's web, which is it feels like browsing through a magazine store — full of top 10s, shallow wow

Good comparison. Reminds me of an analogy I like to make of today's web, which is it feels like browsing through a magazine store — full of top 10s, shallow wow-factoids, and baity material. I genuinely believe terrible results like this are making society dumber.

wwweston 5y ago
It's also possible that it's the other way around: a certain "common denominator" + algorithms that chase broad engagement = mediocre results. The real trick would be some kind of engine that can aim just above where the user's at.
rchaud 5y ago
The context matters. I'd happily read "Top 10" lists on a website if the site itself was dedicated to that one thing. "Top 10 Prog Rock albums", while a lazy, SEO-bait title, would at least be credible if it were on a music-oriented website. But no, these stories all come from cookie-cutter "new media" blog sites, written by an anonymous content writer who's repackaged Wikipedia/Discogs info into Buzzfeed-style copy writing designed to get people to "share to Twitter/FB". No passion, no expertise. Just eyeballs at any cost.
- foofoo4u 5y ago
  This got me thinking that maybe one of the other big reasons for this is that the algorithms prioritize newer pages over older pages. This produces the problem where instead of covering a topic and refining it over time, the incentive is to repackage it over and over again. It reminds me of an annoyance I have with the Kindle store. If I wanted to find a book on, let's say, Psychology, there is no option to find all-time respected books of the past centenary. Amazon's algorithms constantly push to recommend the latest hot book of the year. But I don't want that. A year is not enough time to have society determine if the material withstands time. I want something that has stood the test of time and is recommended by reputable institutions.
  - amenod 5y ago
    > is that the algorithms prioritize newer pages over older pages. They do? That would explain a lot - but ironically, I can't find a good source on this. Do you have one at hand?
    - dvogel 5y ago
      It is pretty obvious if you search for any old topic that is also covered incessantly by the news. "royal family" is a good example. There's no way those news stories published an hour ago are listed first due to a high PageRank score (which necessarily depends on time to accumulate inbound links).
      - RattleyCooper 5y ago
        It depends on the content. The flip side is looking up a programming-related question and getting results from 2012. I think they take different things into account based on the thing being searched.
        II2II 5y ago
        Even your example would depend upon the context. There are many cases where a programming question in 2021 is identical to one from 2012, along with the answer. In those instances, would you rather a shallow answer from 2021 or an indepth answer from 2012? This is not meant to imply that older answers offer greater depth, yet a heavy bias towards recent material can produce that outcome in some circumstances.
        valvar 5y ago
        If you're using tools/languages that change rapidly (like Kotlin, in my case), syntax from a few years ago will often be outdated.
        II2II 5y ago
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  Its the "healthy web" Mozilla^1 and Google keep telling their blog audiences about. :) 1 Accept quid pro quo to send all queries to Google by default If what these companies were telling their readers was true, i.e., that advertising is "essential" for the web to survive, then how are the sites returned by this search engine for text-heavy websites (that are not discoverable through Google, the default search engine for Chrome, Firefox, etc.) able to remain online. Advertising is essential for the "tech" company middleman business to survive.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with your example. It seems to me it is the exact same as a "Top ten drinks to drink on a rainy day" list. There's simply too many good albums and opinions differ, so a top ten would -just like the drinks- end up being a list of the most popular ones with maybe one the author picks to stir some controversy or discussion. In my opinion the world would be a smarter place if Google ranked all such sites low. Then we might at least get fluff like "Top ten prog rock albums if you love X, hate Y and listen to Z when no one is around" instead.
  - dageshi 5y ago
    Google won't rank them low because they actually do serve an important purpose. They're there for people who don't really know what they want specifically, they're looking for an overview. A top 10 gives a digestible overview on some topic, which helps the searcher narrow down what they really want. A "Top 10 albums of all time" post is actually better off going through 10 genres of popular music from the past 50 years and picking the top album (plus mentioning some other top albums in the genre) for each one. That gives the user the overview they're probably looking for, whether those are the top 10 albums of all time or not. It's a case of what the user searched for vs what they actually really want.
- bythckr 5y ago
  "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads"
bluGill 5y ago
what I really want is a true AI to search through all that and figure out the useful truth. I don't know how to do this (and of course whoever writes the AI needs to be unbiased...)
- hnick 5y ago
  I think that is the goal, it's just what we currently have is an AI that's like a naive child who is easily tricked and distracted by clickbait.
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    >an AI that's <snip> easily tricked and distracted by clickbait. So, AIs are actually on par with most adults now? (Sorry)
- idiotsecant 5y ago
  >whoever writes the AI needs to be unbiased...) I'm not sure the idea of a sentient being not having a bias is meaningful. Reality, once you get past the trivial bits, is subjective.
  - jimbokun 5y ago
    Isn't there a fundamental ML postulate that learning without bias is impossible? Maybe not the same kind of bias we think of in terms of politics and such, but I wonder if there's a connection.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    I didn't say the AI should be unbiased, just whoever writes it. I want an AI that is biased to the truth when there is an objective one, and my tastes otherwise. (that is when asked to find a good book it should give me fantasy even though romance is the most popular genre and so will have better reviews)
anonuser123456 5y ago
> I genuinely believe terrible results like this are making society dumber. You have to e causality reversed. Google results reflect the fact that society is dumb.
- jimbokun 5y ago
  Google results reflect the fact that educating and informing people has low profit margins.
- crucialfelix 5y ago
  Or the distribution of people now online better reflects stupidity in the general population.
redwall_hp 5y ago
So did Tim Berners-Lee. He was vehemently opposed to people shoehorning images into the WWW, because he didn't want it to turn into the equivalent of magazines. Which, I believe, he shared the opinion of them making society dumber. Appropriately enough, I couldn't find a good quote to verify that since Google is only giving me newspapers and magazines talking about Sir Tim in the context of current events. I do believe it's in his book "Weaving the Web" though.

wwweston 5y ago

It's also possible that it's the other way around: a certain "common denominator" + algorithms that chase broad engagement = mediocre results. The real trick would be some kind of engine that can aim just above where the user's at.

rchaud 5y ago

The context matters. I'd happily read "Top 10" lists on a website if the site itself was dedicated to that one thing. "Top 10 Prog Rock albums", while a lazy, SEO-bait title, would at least be credible if it were on a music-oriented website. But no, these stories all come from cookie-cutter "new media" blog sites, written by an anonymous content writer who's repackaged Wikipedia/Discogs info into Buzzfeed-style copy writing designed to get people to "share to Twitter/FB". No passion, no expertise. Just eyeballs at any cost.

foofoo4u 5y ago
This got me thinking that maybe one of the other big reasons for this is that the algorithms prioritize newer pages over older pages. This produces the problem where instead of covering a topic and refining it over time, the incentive is to repackage it over and over again. It reminds me of an annoyance I have with the Kindle store. If I wanted to find a book on, let's say, Psychology, there is no option to find all-time respected books of the past centenary. Amazon's algorithms constantly push to recommend the latest hot book of the year. But I don't want that. A year is not enough time to have society determine if the material withstands time. I want something that has stood the test of time and is recommended by reputable institutions.
- amenod 5y ago
  > is that the algorithms prioritize newer pages over older pages. They do? That would explain a lot - but ironically, I can't find a good source on this. Do you have one at hand?
  - dvogel 5y ago
    It is pretty obvious if you search for any old topic that is also covered incessantly by the news. "royal family" is a good example. There's no way those news stories published an hour ago are listed first due to a high PageRank score (which necessarily depends on time to accumulate inbound links).
    - RattleyCooper 5y ago
      It depends on the content. The flip side is looking up a programming-related question and getting results from 2012. I think they take different things into account based on the thing being searched.
      - II2II 5y ago
        Even your example would depend upon the context. There are many cases where a programming question in 2021 is identical to one from 2012, along with the answer. In those instances, would you rather a shallow answer from 2021 or an indepth answer from 2012? This is not meant to imply that older answers offer greater depth, yet a heavy bias towards recent material can produce that outcome in some circumstances.
        valvar 5y ago
        If you're using tools/languages that change rapidly (like Kotlin, in my case), syntax from a few years ago will often be outdated.
        II2II 5y ago
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
Its the "healthy web" Mozilla^1 and Google keep telling their blog audiences about. :) 1 Accept quid pro quo to send all queries to Google by default If what these companies were telling their readers was true, i.e., that advertising is "essential" for the web to survive, then how are the sites returned by this search engine for text-heavy websites (that are not discoverable through Google, the default search engine for Chrome, Firefox, etc.) able to remain online. Advertising is essential for the "tech" company middleman business to survive.
Dah00n 5y ago
I'm not sure I agree with your example. It seems to me it is the exact same as a "Top ten drinks to drink on a rainy day" list. There's simply too many good albums and opinions differ, so a top ten would -just like the drinks- end up being a list of the most popular ones with maybe one the author picks to stir some controversy or discussion. In my opinion the world would be a smarter place if Google ranked all such sites low. Then we might at least get fluff like "Top ten prog rock albums if you love X, hate Y and listen to Z when no one is around" instead.
- dageshi 5y ago
  Google won't rank them low because they actually do serve an important purpose. They're there for people who don't really know what they want specifically, they're looking for an overview. A top 10 gives a digestible overview on some topic, which helps the searcher narrow down what they really want. A "Top 10 albums of all time" post is actually better off going through 10 genres of popular music from the past 50 years and picking the top album (plus mentioning some other top albums in the genre) for each one. That gives the user the overview they're probably looking for, whether those are the top 10 albums of all time or not. It's a case of what the user searched for vs what they actually really want.
bythckr 5y ago
"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads"

bluGill 5y ago

what I really want is a true AI to search through all that and figure out the useful truth. I don't know how to do this (and of course whoever writes the AI needs to be unbiased...)

hnick 5y ago
I think that is the goal, it's just what we currently have is an AI that's like a naive child who is easily tricked and distracted by clickbait.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  >an AI that's <snip> easily tricked and distracted by clickbait. So, AIs are actually on par with most adults now? (Sorry)
idiotsecant 5y ago
>whoever writes the AI needs to be unbiased...) I'm not sure the idea of a sentient being not having a bias is meaningful. Reality, once you get past the trivial bits, is subjective.
- jimbokun 5y ago
  Isn't there a fundamental ML postulate that learning without bias is impossible? Maybe not the same kind of bias we think of in terms of politics and such, but I wonder if there's a connection.
- bluGill 5y ago
  I didn't say the AI should be unbiased, just whoever writes it. I want an AI that is biased to the truth when there is an objective one, and my tastes otherwise. (that is when asked to find a good book it should give me fantasy even though romance is the most popular genre and so will have better reviews)

anonuser123456 5y ago

> I genuinely believe terrible results like this are making society dumber. You have to e causality reversed. Google results reflect the fact that society is dumb.

jimbokun 5y ago
Google results reflect the fact that educating and informing people has low profit margins.
crucialfelix 5y ago
Or the distribution of people now online better reflects stupidity in the general population.

redwall_hp 5y ago

So did Tim Berners-Lee. He was vehemently opposed to people shoehorning images into the WWW, because he didn't want it to turn into the equivalent of magazines. Which, I believe, he shared the opinion of them making society dumber. Appropriately enough, I couldn't find a good quote to verify that since Google is only giving me newspapers and magazines talking about Sir Tim in the context of current events. I do believe it's in his book "Weaving the Web" though.