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I emphatically don't want this. I want literal keyword search like we used to have in the 90s and early 2000s. NLP isn't good enough (and may never be good eno

by smt88 5y ago

I emphatically don't want this. I want literal keyword search like we used to have in the 90s and early 2000s. NLP isn't good enough (and may never be good enough, unless it's at the level of an intelligent human) to add enough benefit for the cost -- the "cost" being when the NLP classifies my words and gives me "fuzzy" results that have nothing to do with my original search. NLP has made it literally impossible to search for certain things if if's enough of a niche, or in some cases even if it isn't a niche.

alimoeeny 5y ago
maybe another way to say this is: this is fantastic, keep up the good work. However, can you also PLEASE, add a pure "keyword search" where I can type a keyword and get a list of pages that have that exact word in them? in some cases (which might be the minority of searches, but still very important) I need to search for an exact good old fashioned keyword or phrase (similar to what `find` does except sorted by some magical "page rank" like metric. Like the good old days of google. Maybe this can be a paid feature?!
- jedwhite 5y ago
  Hey just posted on another comment, but I'm with you 100%! You can over-ride the NLP and do literal searches. /e or ~e force it, but any search with things like +"phrase" or site: etc will skip the AI and we'll *try* to do a literal search. It's not always successful but we're trying to expand coverage with it. So try: ```/e site:cnn.com +"mars rover"``` for example. The Search Tools menu on the results panel lets you refine searches, related sites, cached version etc too to help with refining via literal patterns. Thanks again!
jedwhite 5y ago
Thank you for your thoughts and I miss literal searches too. Our feeling is that they don't have to be mutually exclusive. So we're trying to build both, including slash commands, advanced operators and some ideas borrowed from the terminal. While it's early days, we've already got some cool things working on that front, including the ability to totally bypass NLP and do advanced operators. So for example, try some of the following: Use '/e' to skip the AI (exact): ```/e site:cnn.com +"mars rover"``` DDG-style !bang commands are supported. Try: ```!a shoes``` Search X for Y - and see the results within Andi: ```/s reddit duckduckgo``` ```/s google python list comprehension``` or just: ```search reddit for duckduckgo``` Direct navigation to on-site searches with 'go' or '/g': ```/g twitter elonmusk free speech``` ```go youtube cute pandas``` ```go politics on reddit``` You can use this to directly navigate to pretty much any site, or any search result on any site. There's quite a bit more, and more coming. So it has both direct literal commands (including operators like quotes etc where we can), and also natural language. Natural language has a lot of advantages working with language models for things like question answering. There are subtle clues in the way we say things to each other as humans that help supply meaningful information, and for those sorts of questions, Andi does much better when people ask questions in plain language including extra information above keywords. So we're trying to build a search that supports both approaches. Also, more terminal like things are coming. Try [space] and up/down arrow to start navigating history.
version_five 5y ago
One thing that is almost always missed in conversational interfaces is that real life conversation works because it converges (ideally) to a meeting of the minds where both parties refine their understanding of what the other wants until they understand each other. I have not seen natural language search that does this, it's all just some shitty intent resolution on top of a list of things that can be returned. Until that is fixed, it doesn't perform better than keywords for anyone who is remotely literate. I feel like the main use case for natural language search would be a time traveler from 100 years ago. Otherwise, everyone already understands better and is not impressed. The only people I see who want chatbots are lazy executives who think it will let them fire people. I don't see a place for them at all in search.

by smt88 5y ago

alimoeeny 5y ago

maybe another way to say this is: this is fantastic, keep up the good work. However, can you also PLEASE, add a pure "keyword search" where I can type a keyword and get a list of pages that have that exact word in them? in some cases (which might be the minority of searches, but still very important) I need to search for an exact good old fashioned keyword or phrase (similar to what `find` does except sorted by some magical "page rank" like metric. Like the good old days of google. Maybe this can be a paid feature?!

jedwhite 5y ago
Hey just posted on another comment, but I'm with you 100%! You can over-ride the NLP and do literal searches. /e or ~e force it, but any search with things like +"phrase" or site: etc will skip the AI and we'll *try* to do a literal search. It's not always successful but we're trying to expand coverage with it. So try: ```/e site:cnn.com +"mars rover"``` for example. The Search Tools menu on the results panel lets you refine searches, related sites, cached version etc too to help with refining via literal patterns. Thanks again!

jedwhite 5y ago

Thank you for your thoughts and I miss literal searches too. Our feeling is that they don't have to be mutually exclusive. So we're trying to build both, including slash commands, advanced operators and some ideas borrowed from the terminal. While it's early days, we've already got some cool things working on that front, including the ability to totally bypass NLP and do advanced operators. So for example, try some of the following: Use '/e' to skip the AI (exact): ```/e site:cnn.com +"mars rover"``` DDG-style !bang commands are supported. Try: ```!a shoes``` Search X for Y - and see the results within Andi: ```/s reddit duckduckgo``` ```/s google python list comprehension``` or just: ```search reddit for duckduckgo``` Direct navigation to on-site searches with 'go' or '/g': ```/g twitter elonmusk free speech``` ```go youtube cute pandas``` ```go politics on reddit``` You can use this to directly navigate to pretty much any site, or any search result on any site. There's quite a bit more, and more coming. So it has both direct literal commands (including operators like quotes etc where we can), and also natural language. Natural language has a lot of advantages working with language models for things like question answering. There are subtle clues in the way we say things to each other as humans that help supply meaningful information, and for those sorts of questions, Andi does much better when people ask questions in plain language including extra information above keywords. So we're trying to build a search that supports both approaches. Also, more terminal like things are coming. Try [space] and up/down arrow to start navigating history.

version_five 5y ago

One thing that is almost always missed in conversational interfaces is that real life conversation works because it converges (ideally) to a meeting of the minds where both parties refine their understanding of what the other wants until they understand each other. I have not seen natural language search that does this, it's all just some shitty intent resolution on top of a list of things that can be returned. Until that is fixed, it doesn't perform better than keywords for anyone who is remotely literate. I feel like the main use case for natural language search would be a time traveler from 100 years ago. Otherwise, everyone already understands better and is not impressed. The only people I see who want chatbots are lazy executives who think it will let them fire people. I don't see a place for them at all in search.