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I think the problem is that recently, the quality of pages linked from search results has increased. There seem to be a lot of people out there who are algorith

I think the problem is that recently, the quality of pages linked from search results has increased. There seem to be a lot of people out there who are algorithmically generating product reviews and comparisons, especially. In years past, I think it was much easier to discern such low-value content. But lately I find that it's not immediately obvious, and I waste time in drawing that conclusion and moving on. So my search strategy, at least for the kinds of things most susceptible, is to shift from "open-ended with exceptions" to "only trust sites whose names I recognize". Sad to see that I should consider moving CNet from the good column to the bad.

tablespoon 4y ago
> I think the problem is that recently, the quality of pages linked from search results has increased. There seem to be a lot of people out there who are algorithmically generating product reviews and comparisons, especially. > In years past, I think it was much easier to discern such low-value content. But lately I find that it's not immediately obvious, and I waste time in drawing that conclusion and moving on. I know what you mean, but I wouldn't describe that as an increase in "quality." > So my search strategy, at least for the kinds of things most susceptible, is to shift from "open-ended with exceptions" to "only trust sites whose names I recognize". IMHO, one interesting thing "AI" might do, is finally kill the open, free-to-access Web, returning things to something like the 90s, where if you wanted to know something, you had to buy a newspaper, magazine, or book published by an institution. It would do it by filling the web with low value stuff that's too hard to detect. DALL-E/Stable Diffusion are already killing the appeal of certain styles of fantastic art, due to overexposure and mediocrity. I look forward to the day when Wikipedia is overrun with "AI"-generated vandalism that's difficult to detect, but designed to corrupt it according to various agendas. They could even include generated citations to documents that sound like they could support the vandalistic claims (because few actually go through the trouble of verifying those).
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  Well, if your goal is information does the provenance being a machine matter? Quality here I assume means more detailed and better written with more nuance. For most of my knowledge seeking searches I don’t care much who wrote it and more whether I gain the knowledge I seek
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Well, if your goal is information does the provenance being a machine matter? My goal is good information, but these technologies (especially currently) mainly enable bad/mediocre information at scale.
    - dumpsterlid 4y ago
      [dead]
    - fnordpiglet 4y ago
      I’ve been using it for a while and while I get bad information at times it’s generally pretty decent and much easier to get through traditional IR methods, especially now that they’re just advertising and SEO wastelands. I find combining the output of chatgpt with some searches yields a much better and faster result in learning for me. I fully anticipate that we will see similar systems tied to IR and semantic reasoning systems soon - the problems are too obvious but so are the solutions, and it’s not like we don’t have amazing tech in the areas chatgpt fails in that can be adapted to constrain and inform the output.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    It has the sheen of knowledge, but assume these instructions to GPT: "write a glowing review of product X, assuming you are an Y using it in your line of work as Z" the output will look better than printf("Template blah %s with %s and %s is really good, check out our website %s, use coupon code %s"); but it's not necessarily better.
    - fnordpiglet 4y ago

tablespoon 4y ago

> I think the problem is that recently, the quality of pages linked from search results has increased. There seem to be a lot of people out there who are algorithmically generating product reviews and comparisons, especially. > In years past, I think it was much easier to discern such low-value content. But lately I find that it's not immediately obvious, and I waste time in drawing that conclusion and moving on. I know what you mean, but I wouldn't describe that as an increase in "quality." > So my search strategy, at least for the kinds of things most susceptible, is to shift from "open-ended with exceptions" to "only trust sites whose names I recognize". IMHO, one interesting thing "AI" might do, is finally kill the open, free-to-access Web, returning things to something like the 90s, where if you wanted to know something, you had to buy a newspaper, magazine, or book published by an institution. It would do it by filling the web with low value stuff that's too hard to detect. DALL-E/Stable Diffusion are already killing the appeal of certain styles of fantastic art, due to overexposure and mediocrity. I look forward to the day when Wikipedia is overrun with "AI"-generated vandalism that's difficult to detect, but designed to corrupt it according to various agendas. They could even include generated citations to documents that sound like they could support the vandalistic claims (because few actually go through the trouble of verifying those).

fnordpiglet 4y ago
Well, if your goal is information does the provenance being a machine matter? Quality here I assume means more detailed and better written with more nuance. For most of my knowledge seeking searches I don’t care much who wrote it and more whether I gain the knowledge I seek
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Well, if your goal is information does the provenance being a machine matter? My goal is good information, but these technologies (especially currently) mainly enable bad/mediocre information at scale.
  - dumpsterlid 4y ago
    [dead]
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    I’ve been using it for a while and while I get bad information at times it’s generally pretty decent and much easier to get through traditional IR methods, especially now that they’re just advertising and SEO wastelands. I find combining the output of chatgpt with some searches yields a much better and faster result in learning for me. I fully anticipate that we will see similar systems tied to IR and semantic reasoning systems soon - the problems are too obvious but so are the solutions, and it’s not like we don’t have amazing tech in the areas chatgpt fails in that can be adapted to constrain and inform the output.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  It has the sheen of knowledge, but assume these instructions to GPT: "write a glowing review of product X, assuming you are an Y using it in your line of work as Z" the output will look better than printf("Template blah %s with %s and %s is really good, check out our website %s, use coupon code %s"); but it's not necessarily better.
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago