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Google won because they started early and had a right algorithm. They then had the scale to grow with the internet. It would be very hard to start a new general

Google won because they started early and had a right algorithm. They then had the scale to grow with the internet. It would be very hard to start a new general-purpose search engine now (capital, monopoly, tech) Nobody seems to have The Next Big Idea for a better search engine yet.

thwayunion 5y ago
LMMs are the next big idea for search.
- riazrizvi 5y ago
  What's an LMM?
  - thwayunion 5y ago
    Sorry, a typo of LLM. gpt-3 et al.
    - riazrizvi 5y ago
      Oh AI is the future of search? Maybe. I think the bigger reason why search isn’t getting much better is that incremental technical improvements are being offset by Google trading their dominance for greater shareholder value. A safe business can take away or buy-and-bury features that are better for the customer but worse for the business’s top line. Things like the Power Search API, or search that integrates with other platforms that hurt Alphabet owned businesses. Traditionally big innovation breaks some socio-political constraint on market participation. I don’t see how AI will do that yet.
      - thwayunion 5y ago
        NLP generative models that you can interrogate with natural language prompts, and which generate coherent responses together with citations for sources, is definitely the future of search. I don't know anything about AI or the relationship between market participation and innovation. All I know is that LLMs are a useful tool that is already displacing search in many parts of my life.
        riazrizvi 5y ago
        I see. These sound like two different products, Google Search vs Google Scholar. I can imagine AI + natural language processing is dramatically changing search performance of dense-detailed text.
- mountainriver 5y ago
  Yup ML is definitely the future of search and google is on the cutting edge of that so I expect they will continue to dominate
ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
Nope I don't think this is true. People keep parroting this like some sort of truth where it clearly is not.

thwayunion 5y ago

LMMs are the next big idea for search.

riazrizvi 5y ago
What's an LMM?
- thwayunion 5y ago
  Sorry, a typo of LLM. gpt-3 et al.
  - riazrizvi 5y ago
    Oh AI is the future of search? Maybe. I think the bigger reason why search isn’t getting much better is that incremental technical improvements are being offset by Google trading their dominance for greater shareholder value. A safe business can take away or buy-and-bury features that are better for the customer but worse for the business’s top line. Things like the Power Search API, or search that integrates with other platforms that hurt Alphabet owned businesses. Traditionally big innovation breaks some socio-political constraint on market participation. I don’t see how AI will do that yet.
    - thwayunion 5y ago
      NLP generative models that you can interrogate with natural language prompts, and which generate coherent responses together with citations for sources, is definitely the future of search. I don't know anything about AI or the relationship between market participation and innovation. All I know is that LLMs are a useful tool that is already displacing search in many parts of my life.
      - riazrizvi 5y ago
        I see. These sound like two different products, Google Search vs Google Scholar. I can imagine AI + natural language processing is dramatically changing search performance of dense-detailed text.
mountainriver 5y ago
Yup ML is definitely the future of search and google is on the cutting edge of that so I expect they will continue to dominate

ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago

Nope I don't think this is true. People keep parroting this like some sort of truth where it clearly is not.