4 ms·

Am I going to one day miss the era when I could just type "pizza" and get adequate results? I don't see what benefit more language processing is going to give m

Am I going to one day miss the era when I could just type "pizza" and get adequate results? I don't see what benefit more language processing is going to give me.

crazygringo 3y ago
When I type in "pizza", I get everything from dollar slices to Italian fine dining. That's not very helpful -- at no point am I ever trying to decide between a $1 slice and a $29 pizza for one. Language processing gets me an immediate answer to, "hey, I'm looking for a cute date spot with pizza, high quality pizza but where you still eat it as slices". That's a massive benefit.
- henriquecm8 3y ago
  Now you can type pizza, google will cross-reference it with the data they collected about you and show only the cheapest place.
  - exclusiv 3y ago
    More likely just show you the place with the highest effective cost per click bid lol.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  Does it actually get you that though?
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    It hasn't come out yet. But if they're training it on the reviews people leave as well as on the user-submitted photos, I see no reason why it wouldn't. After all, when I do an analagous query about historical events or technological products in Google Bard it works just fine.
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      Because on top of kind of sucking generally; the reviews data will frequently be of garbage quality. We don’t have the ability to extract the ideas you’re discussing from photos imo.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  When I type "pizza" I am given a filter that allows me to choose between "$, $$, $$$". That's a little vague but generally I would MUCH rather interact with software with good filtering, grouping and sorting controls than any of this natural language bullshit.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    I recently searched "vegan brunch" in an unfamiliar city. Several results looked reasonable — the kind of decor and branding I'd expect from a vegan restaurant. After the long walk to the third restaurant, I looked closely through the results to see why Google was giving me useless results. It was reviews! It had matched variations on "Great food but no vegan options." I'm sure Google Maps used to have a "Cuisine" filter, which isn't really correct in this case but is a lot closer than what they're doing now.
    - alisonatwork 3y ago
      You probably already know about this, but if you're looking for vegan stuff specifically, Happy Cow is a pretty good site to point you in the direction of decent options.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    For price, sure. But a lot of the time you're looking for things like "cute date spot", "trendy", "chill atmopshere", "cozy", "good for a large birthday group", and so forth. There aren't filters for these. That's my whole point. There's a ton of information that can be gleaned from people's reviews and photos, but that simply aren't exposed in anything filterable. And keyword search often isn't available but also doesn't often work -- e.g. searching for "budget" gives you lots of reviews that say "definitely not budget". But AI is perfect for this.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > There's a ton of information that can be gleaned from people's reviews Extremely unreliable information. Isn't that made worse if what you're looking for is subjective descriptors like "cozy", "chill", "cute", etc? Those are the kinds of things that there won't be a lot of agreement on.
- dmonitor 3y ago
  > hey, I'm looking for a cute date spot with pizza, high quality pizza but where you still eat it as slices that's still so many words, though, and i'm a lazy person. i want to just type "pizza" and, if it's a really fancy app, hit a single button to filter by "casual" "takeout" "formal" etc
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    As a lazy person, it's a lot easier to type that out than wade through 20 different listings, browsing photos and reviews to figure it out.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
datadrivenangel 3y ago
The problem for years now has been that google will hide results that don't meet their standards, much of which boils down to how much advertising the restaurant has paid for.
jowa983j 3y ago
I think you're missing the bigger picture. When you search for "pizza", is pizza really what you want? Maybe you actually want a recurring service from one of google's outstanding partner companies! Google Maps Assistant could help you find that!
maxglute 3y ago
I just sort by food type and 4+ stars. That usually filters list down to something where algos can't inject too much weirdness. Or at least I assume it doesn't. I think my medium density city has not enough options that a filtered list won't return almost everything, confirmed by me being familiar with my neighbourhood and what is returned. But I imagine in denser cities it would be PIA (how much results return for 4 start sushi in middle of Tokyo). All of which is to say, unlike other Google services, so far I can't tell if default Google Maps is getting better or worse over time and I use it all the time.

Am I going to one day miss the era when I could just type "pizza" and get adequate results? I don't see what benefit more language processing is going to give me.

crazygringo 3y ago

When I type in "pizza", I get everything from dollar slices to Italian fine dining. That's not very helpful -- at no point am I ever trying to decide between a $1 slice and a $29 pizza for one. Language processing gets me an immediate answer to, "hey, I'm looking for a cute date spot with pizza, high quality pizza but where you still eat it as slices". That's a massive benefit.

henriquecm8 3y ago
Now you can type pizza, google will cross-reference it with the data they collected about you and show only the cheapest place.
- exclusiv 3y ago
  More likely just show you the place with the highest effective cost per click bid lol.
jncfhnb 3y ago
Does it actually get you that though?
- crazygringo 3y ago
  It hasn't come out yet. But if they're training it on the reviews people leave as well as on the user-submitted photos, I see no reason why it wouldn't. After all, when I do an analagous query about historical events or technological products in Google Bard it works just fine.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Because on top of kind of sucking generally; the reviews data will frequently be of garbage quality. We don’t have the ability to extract the ideas you’re discussing from photos imo.
mvdtnz 3y ago
When I type "pizza" I am given a filter that allows me to choose between "$, $$, $$$". That's a little vague but generally I would MUCH rather interact with software with good filtering, grouping and sorting controls than any of this natural language bullshit.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  I recently searched "vegan brunch" in an unfamiliar city. Several results looked reasonable — the kind of decor and branding I'd expect from a vegan restaurant. After the long walk to the third restaurant, I looked closely through the results to see why Google was giving me useless results. It was reviews! It had matched variations on "Great food but no vegan options." I'm sure Google Maps used to have a "Cuisine" filter, which isn't really correct in this case but is a lot closer than what they're doing now.
  - alisonatwork 3y ago
    You probably already know about this, but if you're looking for vegan stuff specifically, Happy Cow is a pretty good site to point you in the direction of decent options.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  For price, sure. But a lot of the time you're looking for things like "cute date spot", "trendy", "chill atmopshere", "cozy", "good for a large birthday group", and so forth. There aren't filters for these. That's my whole point. There's a ton of information that can be gleaned from people's reviews and photos, but that simply aren't exposed in anything filterable. And keyword search often isn't available but also doesn't often work -- e.g. searching for "budget" gives you lots of reviews that say "definitely not budget". But AI is perfect for this.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > There's a ton of information that can be gleaned from people's reviews Extremely unreliable information. Isn't that made worse if what you're looking for is subjective descriptors like "cozy", "chill", "cute", etc? Those are the kinds of things that there won't be a lot of agreement on.
dmonitor 3y ago
> hey, I'm looking for a cute date spot with pizza, high quality pizza but where you still eat it as slices that's still so many words, though, and i'm a lazy person. i want to just type "pizza" and, if it's a really fancy app, hit a single button to filter by "casual" "takeout" "formal" etc
- crazygringo 3y ago
  As a lazy person, it's a lot easier to type that out than wade through 20 different listings, browsing photos and reviews to figure it out.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

datadrivenangel 3y ago

The problem for years now has been that google will hide results that don't meet their standards, much of which boils down to how much advertising the restaurant has paid for.

jowa983j 3y ago

I think you're missing the bigger picture. When you search for "pizza", is pizza really what you want? Maybe you actually want a recurring service from one of google's outstanding partner companies! Google Maps Assistant could help you find that!

maxglute 3y ago

I just sort by food type and 4+ stars. That usually filters list down to something where algos can't inject too much weirdness. Or at least I assume it doesn't. I think my medium density city has not enough options that a filtered list won't return almost everything, confirmed by me being familiar with my neighbourhood and what is returned. But I imagine in denser cities it would be PIA (how much results return for 4 start sushi in middle of Tokyo). All of which is to say, unlike other Google services, so far I can't tell if default Google Maps is getting better or worse over time and I use it all the time.