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I don't quite get the appeal of replacing a search engine with ChatGPT. It's certainly useful for many use cases [1], but when you're searching for information

I don't quite get the appeal of replacing a search engine with ChatGPT. It's certainly useful for many use cases [1], but when you're searching for information you likely want some trust signals attached to that information. When you land on a website that aggregates information (Reddit, Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, et cetera) you have many signals on display that helps you evaluate the quality and trustworthiness: upvotes, comments, user history, edit history, community meta data, and the list goes on. When you ask a question to ChatGPT, you have no idea if it's complete fiction or not, and if you want to check you'll have to end up searching around anyways. Maybe ChatGPT could eventually stop generating false answers and have metadata attached to the answers it gives, but I wouldn't bet on it unless it grows into much more than just a language model. [1]: Assistive technologies, introducing the web to elderly/children, generating fiction, creative copy, ...

achow 4y ago
One example which shows usefulness of 'ChatGPT style' search. I'm in the market for a new car but have a particular requirement about size of the vehicle (width, length) due to parking constraints at my location. Instead of going to Google, I went to ChatGPT and asked it to compare two different models in terms of size - these two were within my budget and style. The answer that came about was exactly that I was looking for; it felt like some family vehicle expert nicely, helpfully and with empathy explaining the size difference without throwing all mm/cm from the get-go. It started by saying something to the effect: Overall Model1 is slightly larger than Model2, but lengthwise it is more... (I don't remember how exactly it went and too lazy to regenerate the result and paste it here).
- alvah 4y ago
  Was it factually correct or AI hallucination though? This seems like it would be important.
  - achow 4y ago
    It was correct.. was easily verifiable.
- arlcode 4y ago
  Part of it is lack of monetization and advertising. We have forgotten what technology is capable of if it's not overrun by business people. For now no one paied ChatGPT to "recommend" you one over the other or engaged in SEO to game the system. Once that happens it will just as trustworthy as a Google search and smart people will develop a sense of mistrusting the system just like they would a smooth talking sleazy car sales person, who is also a subject matter expert. Unless we are directly paying Microsoft I don't see a way around it and probably not even then.
  - achow 4y ago
    That is extreme view. Why not a link at the bottom which takes to the identified car company website, where I get to see 360 degree view along with all other jazz that the company's marketing spent millions on; and they would be thankful to send some hundreds to ChatGPT way. This is exactly how Google AdWords started. To your point yes, it may go Google way, but there is hope (atleast in the initial years) it may not.
    - arlcode 4y ago
      I agree it will be a process but the motivation to game the lists, comparisons and evaluation in the "natural" result parts will be enormous. If I search for "recipe for an apple pie" google (and the internet), has the information/technology to give me the one paragraph exceprt from my grandma's cooking book that would make me happy. Instead I get bloated spammy pages filled to the brim with ads. Maybe I'm cynical to not believe that Microsoft just scoffs at all those opportunities to get squeeze out extra money. In fact I hope I'm wrong.
alar44 4y ago
This is missing the forest for the trees. Everything you mention is just regular old programming and fixable. The impressive part is the internet compressed into 4GB. This is just the beginning and progress is going extremely quickly.
- Syntonicles 4y ago
  Are you saying the ChatGPT model is only 4GB?
  - lossolo 4y ago
    I think OP meant SD model, it's 4 GB. ChatGPT 175B version is ~350+ GB.
- scottLobster 4y ago
  Not all of the internet. I just tried "What is the most energy efficient electric vehicle available in 2022?" What I thought would be a softball question. I got: "I'm sorry, but I don't have any information about specific electric vehicles that will be available in 2022. In general, the most energy efficient electric vehicles are those that have a large battery pack and a powerful electric motor, which allows them to travel long distances on a single charge. Some of the most energy efficient electric vehicles on the market today include the Tesla Model S, the Nissan Leaf, and the Chevrolet Bolt. It is possible that even more efficient electric vehicles will be available in 2022, but I don't have any specific information about them." Yeah, this thing is a demo. An impressive demo, but still just a demo. Big money chasing hype is nothing new. We have no idea what the backend of this thing looks like or how much potential it has, and its current uses are extremely shallow.
  - shaklee3 4y ago
    openai has specifically said it hasn't been trained with recent data. what did you want it to say?
    - scottLobster 4y ago
brookst 4y ago
You’ve just made an argument that Google’s automated crawling and search algorithms can never disrupt human-curated directories like Yahoo.
safety1st 4y ago
This is one of the situations where "you are the product" applies. They would prefer to produce an inline response because it keeps you from going to another website. This way they don't have to share you with a third party. Which ultimately means they can show you more ads or have more time to find some other way to monetize you. Remember, search engines have been employing this strategy for some time with a variety of inline responses to many searches. The open web is generally the least profitable thing they can direct you to. ChatGPT simply represents an expansion of the business strategy that's already in place when you do a currency conversion or ask for hotel rates or ask a question that has FAQ structured data associated with it on some website. All about keeping you on the page/in network for as long as possible. It doesn't matter if the classical notion of web search is better or is what you really want. They will invest in this model instead if it's more profitable (and to be fair they will attempt to make this model better so that it compares favorably to web search for users, this just isn't the primary goal).
mrkramer 4y ago
>I don't quite get the appeal of replacing a search engine with ChatGPT. It's certainly useful for many use cases [1], but when you're searching for information you likely want some trust signals attached to that information. ChatGPT-like systems in the future can quote sources and recommend further readings and information reservoirs something like books do e.g. "Want to learn more?", "Further Reading:..." etc. Google's ultimate goal was and still is an Answer Machine which gives you almost perfect answer to every question you ask. But I think the fundamental question to ask is do we want an Answer Machine or do we want Internet Search Engine which helps you find useful information and useful websites. And remember World Wide Web(WWW) is not only about information it is also about e-commerce, social connections, entertainment etc. Insofar LLMs like ChatGPT can not fulfill demands of a modern internet user. ChatGPT is like a smart librarian that knows a lot of stuff and can help you every now and then.

achow 4y ago

One example which shows usefulness of 'ChatGPT style' search. I'm in the market for a new car but have a particular requirement about size of the vehicle (width, length) due to parking constraints at my location. Instead of going to Google, I went to ChatGPT and asked it to compare two different models in terms of size - these two were within my budget and style. The answer that came about was exactly that I was looking for; it felt like some family vehicle expert nicely, helpfully and with empathy explaining the size difference without throwing all mm/cm from the get-go. It started by saying something to the effect: Overall Model1 is slightly larger than Model2, but lengthwise it is more... (I don't remember how exactly it went and too lazy to regenerate the result and paste it here).

alvah 4y ago
Was it factually correct or AI hallucination though? This seems like it would be important.
- achow 4y ago
  It was correct.. was easily verifiable.
arlcode 4y ago
Part of it is lack of monetization and advertising. We have forgotten what technology is capable of if it's not overrun by business people. For now no one paied ChatGPT to "recommend" you one over the other or engaged in SEO to game the system. Once that happens it will just as trustworthy as a Google search and smart people will develop a sense of mistrusting the system just like they would a smooth talking sleazy car sales person, who is also a subject matter expert. Unless we are directly paying Microsoft I don't see a way around it and probably not even then.
- achow 4y ago
  That is extreme view. Why not a link at the bottom which takes to the identified car company website, where I get to see 360 degree view along with all other jazz that the company's marketing spent millions on; and they would be thankful to send some hundreds to ChatGPT way. This is exactly how Google AdWords started. To your point yes, it may go Google way, but there is hope (atleast in the initial years) it may not.
  - arlcode 4y ago
    I agree it will be a process but the motivation to game the lists, comparisons and evaluation in the "natural" result parts will be enormous. If I search for "recipe for an apple pie" google (and the internet), has the information/technology to give me the one paragraph exceprt from my grandma's cooking book that would make me happy. Instead I get bloated spammy pages filled to the brim with ads. Maybe I'm cynical to not believe that Microsoft just scoffs at all those opportunities to get squeeze out extra money. In fact I hope I'm wrong.

alar44 4y ago

This is missing the forest for the trees. Everything you mention is just regular old programming and fixable. The impressive part is the internet compressed into 4GB. This is just the beginning and progress is going extremely quickly.

Syntonicles 4y ago
Are you saying the ChatGPT model is only 4GB?
- lossolo 4y ago
  I think OP meant SD model, it's 4 GB. ChatGPT 175B version is ~350+ GB.
scottLobster 4y ago
Not all of the internet. I just tried "What is the most energy efficient electric vehicle available in 2022?" What I thought would be a softball question. I got: "I'm sorry, but I don't have any information about specific electric vehicles that will be available in 2022. In general, the most energy efficient electric vehicles are those that have a large battery pack and a powerful electric motor, which allows them to travel long distances on a single charge. Some of the most energy efficient electric vehicles on the market today include the Tesla Model S, the Nissan Leaf, and the Chevrolet Bolt. It is possible that even more efficient electric vehicles will be available in 2022, but I don't have any specific information about them." Yeah, this thing is a demo. An impressive demo, but still just a demo. Big money chasing hype is nothing new. We have no idea what the backend of this thing looks like or how much potential it has, and its current uses are extremely shallow.
- shaklee3 4y ago
  openai has specifically said it hasn't been trained with recent data. what did you want it to say?
  - scottLobster 4y ago

brookst 4y ago

You’ve just made an argument that Google’s automated crawling and search algorithms can never disrupt human-curated directories like Yahoo.

safety1st 4y ago

This is one of the situations where "you are the product" applies. They would prefer to produce an inline response because it keeps you from going to another website. This way they don't have to share you with a third party. Which ultimately means they can show you more ads or have more time to find some other way to monetize you. Remember, search engines have been employing this strategy for some time with a variety of inline responses to many searches. The open web is generally the least profitable thing they can direct you to. ChatGPT simply represents an expansion of the business strategy that's already in place when you do a currency conversion or ask for hotel rates or ask a question that has FAQ structured data associated with it on some website. All about keeping you on the page/in network for as long as possible. It doesn't matter if the classical notion of web search is better or is what you really want. They will invest in this model instead if it's more profitable (and to be fair they will attempt to make this model better so that it compares favorably to web search for users, this just isn't the primary goal).

mrkramer 4y ago

>I don't quite get the appeal of replacing a search engine with ChatGPT. It's certainly useful for many use cases [1], but when you're searching for information you likely want some trust signals attached to that information. ChatGPT-like systems in the future can quote sources and recommend further readings and information reservoirs something like books do e.g. "Want to learn more?", "Further Reading:..." etc. Google's ultimate goal was and still is an Answer Machine which gives you almost perfect answer to every question you ask. But I think the fundamental question to ask is do we want an Answer Machine or do we want Internet Search Engine which helps you find useful information and useful websites. And remember World Wide Web(WWW) is not only about information it is also about e-commerce, social connections, entertainment etc. Insofar LLMs like ChatGPT can not fulfill demands of a modern internet user. ChatGPT is like a smart librarian that knows a lot of stuff and can help you every now and then.