10 ms·
I don't think people realize how much better Google search has gotten over the years. We tend to remember the annoyances or failures, and not remember all of th
by cromwellian 12y ago
I don't think people realize how much better Google search has gotten over the years. We tend to remember the annoyances or failures, and not remember all of the successes that are second nature to us.
Consider vague long tail queries. Google knocks these out of the park compared to Bing, DDG or others. Let's say there's some old movie you vaguely remember details about:
"movie where evil is in microwave" => Google "Time Bandits". Bing: Nada. DDG: Nada
"dystopian movie with a motorcycle named einstein" => Google "Warrior of the Lost World" Bing: wrong, DDG: wrong
"song about cocaine in california" => Google: Hotel California, Bing, DDG: bottom of page
"star trek episode where spock is possessed" => Google: Return to Tomorrow, Bing/DDG: Spock's Brain (wrong), but nice try"
"previous name of java language" => Google: link to Oak as second item, Bing/DDG: worse result (must click through links to find answer)
"cartoon about plants and a kid with a ring" => Google: Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Bing/DDG: Nope
"tv show with scientist named blackwood" => This one is EASY, Google: War of the Worlds, Bing/DDG: Nope
"guy who tried to bomb parliament" => Google: Direct Answer, Others: links
"tv show with alien who has necklace powered by sun" => Google: 1st result, The Phoenix, Others: 3rd or lower
"cartoon car that has auto jacks" => Google: Speed Racer 2nd result, Others: nope
"flying characters similar to thundercats" => Google: Silverhawks, Others: nope
"movie with guy who owns last car" => Google: The Last Race, Others: nope
"commodore 64 game where alien knocks on window" => Google: Rescue on Fractalus, Others: nope
"toy where you program trailer to dump" => Google: Big Trak, Others: nope
You can play this game all day, trying to come up with the vaguest possible query about old things you remember bits and pieces of from decades ago, and I'm often amazed at how vague and obtuse I can get. Google does these queries much better than others. Yes, it fails a lot too, but the instances where it fails, and others succeed are much more rare than the instances where it succeeds and others fail.
But Google isn't an AI yet. And what Larry is speaking about is achieving Star Trek: a computer that can read the meaning of words, understand, rather than just index characters.
- timr 12y agoYeah, OK...but they increasingly fail on the stuff I actually search for more than once every few months. Even relatively mundane stuff -- like plant care, for example -- has been completely destroyed by SEO gamers. That one just comes to mind because it seems like once a month I search for something related to houseplants, and I almost never get good information without having to extensively refine the search, even though the internet is loaded with high-quality sites about plant care, botany, etc.
- massappeal 12y agoYa but some of their other services have dropped in quality, re: google maps http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/10/google-maps-has-forsaken-us/?utm_campaign=fb&ncid=fb http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/10/google-maps-has-forsaken-us...
- cromwellian 12y agoI think that conflates two things. The Maps Front End, and the Point of Interest database. Both the classic front end and new front end probably use the same DB. So if the query failed on the new UI, it probably failed on the old one, he just never noticed. Is there any proof that "Sambisa Forest" actually ever worked? Otherwise, it is not a regression. Google apparently has a "Sambisa Forest Reserve" in it's database, but no "Sambisa Forest"