4 ms·
Michael Phelps is 14 feet tall
- ilkhan4 2y agoHeh, I'm guessing this comes from one of the Reddit threads below where it mentions "Size 14 feet"
- theandrewbailey 2y agoIt's on the internet, so it must be true!
- SushiHippie 2y agoI wonder if Googles AI response will be even more confident because of your response. As for whatever reason your Comment appears in the snippet on Google Search https://ibb.co/y84rTDP https://ibb.co/y84rTDP
- Edd314159 2y agoTo be clear, this is not Google getting it wrong. This is the AI-generated slop website getting it wrong, Google is just pulling an extract.
- qsymmachus 2y agoThe end result is Google is getting it wrong, we just have two layers of machine slop at work
- jeffbee 2y agoIn the intervening 15 minutes the Google featured snippet has changed, it is now the first paragraph of that page, instead of the paragraph that says he is 14 feet tall.
- rhinoceraptor 2y agoTheir job is to surface useful search results at the top, and inaccurate or untrustworthy sources at the bottom. They used to be quite good at doing that.
- threetonesun 2y agoThe extract being used for a search would fall in Google's domain, one would think.
- esafak 2y agoGoogle's offense is not detecting and excluding it. Their spam filter is not working well.
- 101008 2y agoThis is wrong. It's Google getting it wrong, failing to parse/understand this Reddit comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41142610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41142610
- eCa 2y agoOf all the sources (and their reliability) available to Google, they chose the one thinking that fourteen feet is a reasonable length for a human.
- dandigangi 2y agoGenetics god.
- silexia 2y agoOr do a search on Donald Trump and read only results on Kamala Harris...
- somehnguy 2y agoNot what I see at all
- js2 2y agoPlease take a look at HN guidelines for commenting: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Almost all of your recent comments seem outside of these guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=silexia https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=silexia Thank you.
- silexia 2y agoYou may disagree with my ideas, but this is a genuine contribution relevant to the article being discussed.
- js2 2y agoHere's my first page of results: https://ibb.co/tMdRcMQ https://ibb.co/tMdRcMQ https://ibb.co/WByccyF https://ibb.co/WByccyF https://ibb.co/BN2nSZH https://ibb.co/BN2nSZH It's all Donald Trump links except for the news section which is a mix of articles that are either specific to Trump or mention Trump. So what you describe is inaccurate for me and another HN reader who replied to you, and is probably the most inflammatory contribution one could make to this thread. There's nowhere to go with your comment that's likely to lead to fruitful conversation.
- silexia 2y agoI am glad to see the results have been fixed. You can see what I was referencing as of five days ago in this and other news articles: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-google-president-donald-trump-search-autocomplete-anomaly/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-google-president-dona...
- parasti 2y agoI don't see anything about his height at the link.
- techostritch 2y agoIt looks like a typo? The referenced article has it too: “Phelps has huge palms that support his paddling ability and is 14 feet tall, which essentially act as flippers (the kind of fingerless arms that seals have).” Like 30% down the page of: https://www.scienceabc.com/sports/michael-phelps-height-arms-torso-arm-span-feet-swimming.html#:~:text=Palms%20and%20Feet,fingerless%20arms%20that%20seals%20have https://www.scienceabc.com/sports/michael-phelps-height-arms...).
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jeffbee 2y agoSorry, I knew it is a risk that everyone gets different results on Google. For me the "featured snippet" is taken from this page, which was obviously generated by an LLM, and which plainly states that Phelps is 14 feet tall. To me, it is a signifier that the web is truly dead, and LLMs killed it. The search engines are featuring the LLM outputs now. https://www.scienceabc.com/sports/michael-phelps-height-arms-torso-arm-span-feet-swimming.html https://www.scienceabc.com/sports/michael-phelps-height-arms...
- tivert 2y agoArchived, so future generations can know how good things used to be: https://web.archive.org/web/20240802203907/https://www.google.com/search?q=does+michael+phelps+have+gigantic+hands https://web.archive.org/web/20240802203907/https://www.googl...
- SushiHippie 2y ago> Hrm. > The Wayback Machine has not archived that URL. Does not seem to work? Edit: FTFY https://web.archive.org/web/20240802203907/https://www.google.com/search?q=does+michael+phelps+have+gigantic+hands https://web.archive.org/web/20240802203907/https://www.googl...
- tivert 2y agoThanks, fixed it. The weird thing is when I open your fixed link, it gets rewritten in the URL bar to the incorrect one I had previously posted. Guessing some javscript is going wrong.
- xyst 2y agoMaybe AI is just interpreting results from a different timeline where Phelps is actually 14 ft tall! /s
- Koshkin 2y agoThe A.I. appears to have misinterpreted "FEET Size 14" seen at the bottom of the picture.
- ortusdux 2y agoI've been getting erroneous unit conversions for half a year now - https://www.google.com/search?q=130m+to+inches https://www.google.com/search?q=130m+to+inches Interestingly, "130m to in" works https://www.google.com/search?q=130m+to+in https://www.google.com/search?q=130m+to+in
- IshKebab 2y ago"130m in inches" works. I'm pretty sure that's the "native" syntax and anything else is fed through some kind of heuristic recogniser which obviously didn't work in this case. Very strange failure mode though!
- ortusdux 2y agoDifferent values with the same syntax will pass/fail randomly: https://www.google.com/search?q=130m+to+inches https://www.google.com/search?q=130m+to+inches https://www.google.com/search?q=140m+to+inches https://www.google.com/search?q=140m+to+inches Return 51.1811" and 5511.81" respectively
- IshKebab 2y agoYeah, as I said I think that's because "to" is not the right syntax, so it fails the "native" calculator input and has to get translated into the proper syntax by some probabilistic system.
- jdoliner 2y agoThe source of the error is this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pfkel9/eli5_how_was_michael_phelps_so_damn_good/ https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pfkel9/e... which lists Phelp's physical advantages including: "Size 14 feet = basically flippers"
- NotYourLawyer 2y agoThe miasma is here to stay.
- atleastoptimal 2y agoyou will love Big Slop
- maerF0x0 2y agohttps://www.scienceabc.com/sports/michael-phelps-height-arms-torso-arm-span-feet-swimming.html https://www.scienceabc.com/sports/michael-phelps-height-arms...
- xnx 2y agoNote that the query is "does michael phelps have gigantic hands" and returns th text "Phelps has huge palms that support his paddling ability and is 14 feet tall, which essentially act as flippers (the kind of fingerless arms that seals have)." in the top response next to a picture showing him 6' 4". If you search "how tall is michael phelps" you get the answer: 6′ 4″ This is another contrived "gotcha".
- jasomill 2y agoPunctuation is important: https://jasomill.at/777.png https://jasomill.at/777.png This is misleading, but not technically inaccurate. But Bing also claims I can store 410 trillion microSD cards in a 40-foot intermodal shipping container: https://jasomill.at/nanoSD.pdf https://jasomill.at/nanoSD.pdf
- manmal 2y agoflugzeuginfo will be a German source, a locale where dot and comma in numbers are switched.
- jasomill 2y agoCorrect, but to avoid confusion, search engines should present infobox results using the locale conventions of the search page (en-US in my example), not the source. For instance, Google correctly reports Germany's 2022 GDP as $4.082 trillion in en-US and $4,082 Billionen in de-DE.
- twiss 2y agoBeyond the punctuation, it's also arguably the wrong number: it's the maximum payload weight, not the weight of the aircraft itself, that's 144,379 kg for the 777 Freighter (according to the linked page), and e.g. 159,570 kg for the 777-300: https://www.flugzeuginfo.net/acdata_php/acdata_7773_en.php https://www.flugzeuginfo.net/acdata_php/acdata_7773_en.php.
- PeterCorless 2y agoThey have since fixed the caption: Michael Phelps's height, wingspan, and large hands and feet give him an advantage in swimming. His body also produces less lactic acid than his rivals, which shortens his recovery time. Jan 18, 2024 And they point to this article: https://www.scienceabc.com/sports/michael-phelps-height-arms-torso-arm-span-feet-swimming.html https://www.scienceabc.com/sports/michael-phelps-height-arms...
- JohnFen 2y ago"wingspan" Can't wait for the results talking about Phelp's flying abilities.
- psawaya 2y agoHis Hinge says 16 feet
- bb88 2y agoFun fact: The 70 cm band is also known as the 4 meter band. https://www.google.com/search?q=Is+the+70cm+band+also+known+as+the+4+m+band https://www.google.com/search?q=Is+the+70cm+band+also+known+... "Yes, the 70-centimeter band is also known as the 4-meter band because it's 70 MHz."
- heyrikin 2y agomakes sense
- nojvek 2y agoPerplexity gets it right at 6’4. https://www.perplexity.ai/search/does-micheal-phelps-have-gigan-faHcb0VZSde_mEVp7rAIsQ https://www.perplexity.ai/search/does-micheal-phelps-have-gi... I have a feeling Google will acquire Perplexity. It’s a great search engine.