3 ms·

Well google also can point me to fake links with no real content at all as well. But I get your point.

sitkack 4y ago
At the level of abstraction I believe your friend was talking about, yes, this is effectively a condensed model of "The Internet" and the results returned by Google. For those saying it can generate new things, well it is interpolating between existing data points in the corpus, but mushed through a bunch of math.
- skybrian 4y ago
  Yes, but also, mixing together different articles on the Internet by different authors results in a complicated mixture of truth and fiction. What you get back depends on the query and some amount of randomness (depending on settings). By not mixing the articles together, a search engine lets you see where the information came from. These are both useful things to do, but one is more useful for fiction and the other for nonfiction. I'm not sure "interpolation" is the right word, though, for these mixtures. Transformer output seems more creative than that.
  - sitkack 4y ago
    As a creative person, creativity is over rated. But dont let me speak for everyone. It is a straight line in a higher dimensional space. We vibe with the space, or it chooses us by prior experience. Creativity is in some aspect, in the eye of the beholder. I think the creativity we see in ML models is not unlike the creativity we prescribe to humans. Interpolation is the right word and the right concept and metaphor. A mixing between two concepts to create a path between the two.
Tao3300 4y ago
Google can also return "People also asked" results that make so sense or give incorrect answers. Sometimes they even contradict the cited article. E.g Ask "is pi disjunctive" and you'll get the top result of > = 3.1415926535897932384626433832795... is a disjunctive number. But if you click into the article (what percentage even will?) you'll find it's part of a larger statement: > It is not known whether π = 3.1415926535897932384626433832795... is a disjunctive number.
- anonymoushn 4y ago
  Earlier this year you could google "is covid airborne" and get a WHO article explaining that it is not airborne above the first result :)

At the level of abstraction I believe your friend was talking about, yes, this is effectively a condensed model of "The Internet" and the results returned by Google. For those saying it can generate new things, well it is interpolating between existing data points in the corpus, but mushed through a bunch of math.

skybrian 4y ago
Yes, but also, mixing together different articles on the Internet by different authors results in a complicated mixture of truth and fiction. What you get back depends on the query and some amount of randomness (depending on settings). By not mixing the articles together, a search engine lets you see where the information came from. These are both useful things to do, but one is more useful for fiction and the other for nonfiction. I'm not sure "interpolation" is the right word, though, for these mixtures. Transformer output seems more creative than that.
- sitkack 4y ago
  As a creative person, creativity is over rated. But dont let me speak for everyone. It is a straight line in a higher dimensional space. We vibe with the space, or it chooses us by prior experience. Creativity is in some aspect, in the eye of the beholder. I think the creativity we see in ML models is not unlike the creativity we prescribe to humans. Interpolation is the right word and the right concept and metaphor. A mixing between two concepts to create a path between the two.

Tao3300 4y ago

Google can also return "People also asked" results that make so sense or give incorrect answers. Sometimes they even contradict the cited article. E.g Ask "is pi disjunctive" and you'll get the top result of > = 3.1415926535897932384626433832795... is a disjunctive number. But if you click into the article (what percentage even will?) you'll find it's part of a larger statement: > It is not known whether π = 3.1415926535897932384626433832795... is a disjunctive number.

anonymoushn 4y ago
Earlier this year you could google "is covid airborne" and get a WHO article explaining that it is not airborne above the first result :)