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I too am optimistic about the tech. And I would even consider myself an early adopter of convolutional NNs and these LLM products in my commercial work. But we

by clnq 4y ago

I too am optimistic about the tech. And I would even consider myself an early adopter of convolutional NNs and these LLM products in my commercial work. But we have to state the obvious - Bing chat is not a good substitute for web search now. It is simply too unreliable. You.com has a better implementation of a search chat LLM imho because it quotes web more verbatim and uses more reliable sources. It also doesn’t simulate going on emotional tangents. Sydney needed more time to mature as a product before Microsoft slapped “Bing” on it. It may still mature, but Microsoft took a big reputation hit for rushing this to market.

aparsons 4y ago
Oh I agree with that. LLM doesn't give you better search - better search {index, ranking, SEO-tolerance, ...} gives you better search. To me, Bing chat - although imperfect - augments search positively to fill my specific needs. 0) I don't see half a page of ads before the first real result, disguised to look like real results. 1) The interface is clean and noise-free : it takes away a huge context switching load I incur when going into individual results (which for most searches these days, is the top 3-5). I just want the content summarized, with no ads, in a form my brain is used to. 2) I can ask follow-up questions with context, again without ever leaving the interface. Otherwise, the follow up question's answer is often on another website. 3) I can ask more creative questions, which is not really a 'search' feature. Something like 'write a snippet of code'. You can try "unique_ptr in rust - show examples too" and it gives me a passable and concise answer. It presents two options, but to get what I exactly want, I can ask "how to use Box?" as a follow on. 4) It's vastly better at 'connect the dots' queries - see my other comment please. One underrated feature is the 'next query' suggestions - I can use a single click instead of typing out 'one more example' or see more subtle examples by clicking 'how can I use Box for recursive types?'.

by clnq 4y ago

aparsons 4y ago

Oh I agree with that. LLM doesn't give you better search - better search {index, ranking, SEO-tolerance, ...} gives you better search. To me, Bing chat - although imperfect - augments search positively to fill my specific needs. 0) I don't see half a page of ads before the first real result, disguised to look like real results. 1) The interface is clean and noise-free : it takes away a huge context switching load I incur when going into individual results (which for most searches these days, is the top 3-5). I just want the content summarized, with no ads, in a form my brain is used to. 2) I can ask follow-up questions with context, again without ever leaving the interface. Otherwise, the follow up question's answer is often on another website. 3) I can ask more creative questions, which is not really a 'search' feature. Something like 'write a snippet of code'. You can try "unique_ptr in rust - show examples too" and it gives me a passable and concise answer. It presents two options, but to get what I exactly want, I can ask "how to use Box?" as a follow on. 4) It's vastly better at 'connect the dots' queries - see my other comment please. One underrated feature is the 'next query' suggestions - I can use a single click instead of typing out 'one more example' or see more subtle examples by clicking 'how can I use Box for recursive types?'.