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> Will this fundamentally change how people find and access information? How do you create an experience so compelling that it replaces the current paradigm? I
by wvenable 2y ago
> Will this fundamentally change how people find and access information? How do you create an experience so compelling that it replaces the current paradigm?
I think it's already compelling enough to replace the current paradigm. Search is pretty much dead to me. I have to end every search with "reddit" to get remotely useful results.
The concern I have with LLMs replacing search is that once it starts being monetized with ads or propaganda, it's going to be very dangerous. The context of results are scrubbed.
- shdh 2y agoGoogle has a "site" filter. You can suffix: "site:reddit.com" and get results for that particular site only.
- steine65 2y agoI'm curious to know if anyone sees better results by using site:reddit.com vs just appending the word reddit to your search. I've felt the results are similar.
- _bin_ 2y agoAppending the word will occasionally get you blogspam "here's the top X of Y according to reddit". The `site:` query doesn't have that problem.
- jdgoesmarching 2y agoThey even broke this for me (in a way) because for some inexplicable reason Google blocks text replacement on Mac in their search. Yes there are workarounds, but I like using the native OS text expansion and it works everywhere except Google.
- blackhaj7 2y agoErgh, yeah. This is a horrible but valid point
- jsheard 2y ago> The concern I have with LLMs replacing search is that once it starts being monetized with ads or propaganda, it's going to be very dangerous. Not to mention that users consuming most content through a middle-man completely breaks most publishers business models. Traditional search is a mutually beneficial arrangement, but LLM search is parasitic. Expect to see a lot more technical countermeasures and/or lawsuits against LLM search engines which regurgitate so much material that they effectively replace the need to visit the original publisher.
- kylebenzle 2y agoYes, I also don't understand how LLM based compaines expect people to keep producing contect for them for free.
- dageshi 2y agoI think they're gonna have to pay. The way reddit limited access to their API and got google to pay for access. Some variation of that but on a wider scale.
- ileonichwiesz 2y agoBut that breaks OpenAI’s (et al) entire business model. Those AI companies can barely afford to operate as it is, while they scrape the entire web for free. I don’t see how they could keep above water once every website starts paywalling their stuff.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 2y agoIs it the training or running costs that are putting them in debt? Presumably we'll eventually get to a point where the models are good and they can train less and charge enough to turn a profit. Maybe then they can do a revshare with content creators. Maybe something like YouTube
- dageshi 2y agoThey'll have to figure it out because people aren't gonna write content just for openai to scrape it, the economics don't work.
- steelframe 2y ago> Search is pretty much dead to me. I've heard reports that requesting verbatim results via the tbs=li:1 parameter has helped some people postpone entirely giving up on Google. Personally I've already been on Kagi for a while and am not planning on ever needing to go back.
- encom 2y agoFuzzy search is cancer. I search for $FOO, click a result, Ctrl-F for $FOO ==> Not found. Many such cases. If there's a way to force DuckDuckGo to actually do what I tell it to, I'd love to hear it.
- maqnius 2y agoTry searching for "$FOO", that's what I usually do in those cases. See https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/syntax/ https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/syntax/
- bruh2 2y agoI thought this problem will disappear upon switching to Kagi, but it suffers from the same disease, albeit to a lesser extent. I remember reading a Google Search engineer on here explain that the engine just latches on some unrendered text in the HTML code. For example: hidden navbars, prefetch, sitemaps. I was kinda shocked that Google themselves, having infinite resources, couldn't get the engine to realize which sections gets rendered... so that might have been a good excuse.
- mgh2 2y agoAlso, energy use: 10x as much as a Google search https://www.rwdigital.ca/blog/how-much-energy-do-google-search-and-chatgpt-use/#:~:text=While%20Google%27s%20energy%20use%20for,for%20a%20single%20Google%20search https://www.rwdigital.ca/blog/how-much-energy-do-google-sear....
- beeflet 2y agoIt's not that signifigant if you compare the average person's energy use from internet searches, versus something like air conditioning
- SideQuark 2y agoSaying it's no problem to increase energy use 10x as long as something else uses more is not really a compelling argument. Especially when there are decent replacements to save the 10x item. If I made a 10x less energy use AC I'd be a billionaire; comparing to one of the most costly energy uses that has no simple replacement is not a good metric.
- mewpmewp2 2y agoYou still have to consider what is worth optimizing and what is not. Getting your task done because of a superior search engine also saves total energy spent on getting that task done.
- levocardia 2y agoIf AC did not exist and I invented it, I would also be a billionaire, energy consumption would go up, and the net effect for society would be positive. Energy consumption going up has always been a sign of improvement in human wellbeing. Why would the future be any different?
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- psychoslave 2y agoI doubt air conditioning is as used as internet search engines. The only places where I ever saw air climatisation is cars and business buildings. I never saw one in a personal home, let alone a personal device carried in the pocket you can use while walking.
- psychoslave 2y agoWhat do you mean with "when it starts"? To my mind it's obvious all LLM are heavily biased to a point it's ridiculous, all the more with the confident tone they are trained to take. I have no doubt Chinese LLM will prise the party as much as American ones will sing the gospel of neoliberal capitalism.
- int_19h 2y agoCuriously, when you ask Qwen-72B (from Alibaba) about Tiananmen, it's not censored.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mewpmewp2 2y agoWe could have many different LLMs trained to be biased in different ways and have some form of bias checking tester, like ground news - then everyone can get their bias and live in their echo chamber.
- jumping_frog 2y agoThe reason many echo chambers exist is to keep the centre of mass or barycenter from moving too fast.
- astrange 2y agoLooks okay to me. https://chatgpt.com/share/6723f225-bd74-8000-bfef-4f7f8687b084 https://chatgpt.com/share/6723f225-bd74-8000-bfef-4f7f8687b0...
- psychoslave 2y agoI agree. I quickly tried to find an other generic demand on politics and it was not so biased in the way I expected. https://chatgpt.com/share/6724116c-13b8-8003-bb2a-4d2ca49da473 https://chatgpt.com/share/6724116c-13b8-8003-bb2a-4d2ca49da4... https://chatgpt.com/share/672414aa-bcc8-8003-beec-ba4eae83a0b4 https://chatgpt.com/share/672414aa-bcc8-8003-beec-ba4eae83a0... I guess it matches well my own biases:'D
- Terr_ 2y ago> I think it's already compelling enough to replace the current paradigm. Search is pretty much dead to me. I have to end every search with "reddit" to get remotely useful results. I worry that there's a confusion here--and in these debates in general--between: 1. Has the user given enough information that what they want could be found 2. Is the rest of the system set up to actually contain and deliver what they wanted While Aunt Tillie might still have problems with #1, the reason things seem to be Going To Shit is more on #2, which is why even "power users" are complaining. It doesn't matter how convenient #1 becomes for Aunt Tillie, it won't solve the deeper problems of slop and spam and site reputation.
- jahewson 2y agoReddit is astroturfed pretty hard too nowadays. It just takes more work to spot it.
- ryandrake 2y agoYea, the whole "Scope your search to reddit" idea always comes up, but it just seems like a really terrible idea. How does one know for sure that the results from Reddit are any more accurate or authoritative than random SEO spam? There's very little curation or moderation there--anyone could post anything there. I could go there and comment on a subject that I have zero expertise in, make it sound confidently correct, and your reddit-scoped search might find it. Why would you trust it?
- wvenable 2y agoYou can read whole conversations. Most of the smaller subreddits that this type of search picks up are actually filled with people passionate about whatever subject area it is. In general, I find it very trustworthy. If you post something wrong on the Internet, someone will correct you.
- thruway516 2y agoI always get downvoted for this, but I much prefer Quora in my search results to Reddit for this reason. Although they've abandoned it now their earlier stringent sign-up process requiring that you are a real human means you're more likely to come across an answer with a real name and/or professional creds attached to it, and those answers imo tend to be higher quality. Of course there's all the copypasta spam (mostly) from India but that is easy to avoid since people use their real handles not anonymous sock puppets. Unfortunately they've decided to go down the route of promoting their AI chatbot in search results which for me has significantly degraded the results
- hightrix 2y agoAdditionally, since the reddit-google deal, this only works on google anymore. I search on DDG for recent reddit content and there is nothing returned, as expected. Google really does seem determined to completely destroy internet search.
- ho_schi 2y agoSame here? Search means either: * Stackoverlow. Damaged through new owner but the idea lives. * Reddit. Google tries to fuck it up with „Auto translation“? * Gitlab or GitHub if something needs a bugfix. The rest of the internet is either an entire ****show or pure gold pressed latinum but hardly navigatable thanks to monopolies like Google and Microsoft. PS: ChatGPT already declines in answer because is source is Stackoverflow? And…well…these source are humans.
- amorfusblob 2y agoI've become so complacent these last 20 years. I wonder if I try to browse the web, will I stumble upon anything as awesome as the 1998 web scene was?
- whiplash451 2y agoFor what it’s worth, sama said at a Harvard event recently that he “despised” ads and would use them at a last resort. It came across as genuine and I have the intuition/hope that they might find an alternative.
- jazzyjackson 2y agoEveryone despises ads until other revenue streams run dry
- whiplash451 2y agoI know. I thought the same. Still, part of me wants to believe that something else will come.
- hightrix 2y agoThe original Google whitepaper warned against the exact moves Google made years later with ads. It's fun to go back and read their thoughts on ads and how they completely change the incentives of the search provider. "fun" in that they were right and search quality has decreased considerably because of it.
- thruway516 2y agoHe also founded OpenAI as a non-profit.
- twobitshifter 2y agoI still search by default but i am starting to turn to LLMs when the search is failing and getting better answers. For example, I couldn’t remember the word shibboleth, but an LLM was able to give me it from my description, search couldn’t. For another example, I saw some code using a repeated set of symbols as a shorthand. I didn’t know what this does, but searching for a symbol is badly broken on Google - i just asked the LLM about the code and it gave me the answer.