Inefficiency in search has long been the norm; AI will snuff it out
November 18, 2024 11:31 AM Subscribe
The change will be the equivalent of going from navigating a library with the Dewey decimal system, and thus encountering related books on adjacent shelves, to requesting books for pickup through a digital catalog. It could completely reorient our relationship to knowledge, prioritizing rapid, detailed, abridged answers over a deep understanding and the consideration of varied sources and viewpoints. Much of what’s beautiful about searching the internet is jumping into ridiculous Reddit debates and developing unforeseen obsessions on the way to mastering a topic you’d first heard of six hours ago, via a different search; falling into clutter and treasure, all the time, without ever intending to. AI search may close off these avenues to not only discovery but its impetus, curiosity. from The Death of Search [The Atlantic: ungated]
OpenAI, in its announcement of its new search feature, wrote that “getting useful answers on the web can take a lot of effort. It often requires multiple searches and digging through links to find quality sources and the right information for you. Now, chat can get you to a better answer.”
Effort! God knows we don't want to do anything that takes effort. After all, we're so much better off when we eat nothing but convenience foods, drive everywhere, order everything online, never go out because everything is brought to our doors, never read anything because it's easier to watch Tik-Toks, etc.
This is all just real death-drive shit. Sit in one place with a constant stream of brain-dead content and pseudo-information, never work, never think, never try, just chatGPT your way though life as the planet burns down around you. And of course, the usual discourse will no doubt arise - people are just too tired to google search or read a book, so it's really self-care or resistance or something, so good for us.
No, it's the appeal to our desire to be dead - all this is about a living death where you never do anything or try anything to form the self.
posted by Frowner at 11:44 AM on November 18 [107 favorites]
Effort! God knows we don't want to do anything that takes effort. After all, we're so much better off when we eat nothing but convenience foods, drive everywhere, order everything online, never go out because everything is brought to our doors, never read anything because it's easier to watch Tik-Toks, etc.
This is all just real death-drive shit. Sit in one place with a constant stream of brain-dead content and pseudo-information, never work, never think, never try, just chatGPT your way though life as the planet burns down around you. And of course, the usual discourse will no doubt arise - people are just too tired to google search or read a book, so it's really self-care or resistance or something, so good for us.
No, it's the appeal to our desire to be dead - all this is about a living death where you never do anything or try anything to form the self.
posted by Frowner at 11:44 AM on November 18 [107 favorites]
TBH, speaking as a librarian that works + researches heavily with old print, the current online-primarily search environment is already so attenuated and janky that it's likely just death through a few more of many, many cuts. There are a handful of big web pools that I now find indispensable (Hathi, Chronicling America, Internet Archive), but broadly, 30 years into this, the web has never matched the value of a top tier research library pre-2000, even though people have trying to loudly convince me of that for the whole goddamn time.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:48 AM on November 18 [77 favorites]
posted by ryanshepard at 11:48 AM on November 18 [77 favorites]
It's not even about effort. It's that the signal-to-noise ratio has fallen so much--especially because of all the endless AI slop that's being generated--that we can no longer perform basic information retrieval tasks without being augmented by some AI assistant who will sort through the noise and distill information into something we can process.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:51 AM on November 18 [11 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:51 AM on November 18 [11 favorites]
For decades, the search bar has been a known entity. People around the world are accustomed to it; several generations implicitly regard google as the first and best way to learn about basically anything.
Decades. Several generations. Rly? Damn, I can remember at the dawn of the millenium, seeing the canary yellow google search computer our main client had just paid five figures for, to power search on their website.
It was pretty obvious from the start that Ai-assisted search would be one of te first implementations. It was how I first played with the public beta of chatGPT, and if the queries and directions to chatGPT were well-crafted (sometimes over a few iterations), the results were pretty impressive. I think my queries were 50% of the effort though.
So far, the AI-generated summaries on google don't impress me much. They reflect the same inaccuracies and biases as the first page of sponsored, SEO'd results do. So an AI-generated summary of crap results. This might improve if I can figure out how to write better queries for the new thing.
posted by Artful Codger at 12:00 PM on November 18 [7 favorites]
Decades. Several generations. Rly? Damn, I can remember at the dawn of the millenium, seeing the canary yellow google search computer our main client had just paid five figures for, to power search on their website.
It was pretty obvious from the start that Ai-assisted search would be one of te first implementations. It was how I first played with the public beta of chatGPT, and if the queries and directions to chatGPT were well-crafted (sometimes over a few iterations), the results were pretty impressive. I think my queries were 50% of the effort though.
So far, the AI-generated summaries on google don't impress me much. They reflect the same inaccuracies and biases as the first page of sponsored, SEO'd results do. So an AI-generated summary of crap results. This might improve if I can figure out how to write better queries for the new thing.
posted by Artful Codger at 12:00 PM on November 18 [7 favorites]
I had a really odd experience the other day at Barnes and Noble. I never really go to the bookstore anymore, since there's only one and it's far away (compared to when I was growing up, and my town was smaller, and there were...eight?...I think, that I'd regularly visit). But anyway, I happened to be there, and was walking through the aisles and thinking, I don't know how to shop for books this way anymore. Part of it is just that B&N has a sort of attention-deficit approach to browsing, where you move from themed table to table, and here are some toys, and some office supplies, and you can't really settle in and look. But part of it is just that the multiple dimensions of online book shopping have gotten to me. Browsing used to be a fairly linear experience--look at this book, flip through, put it back, then look at that book, etc. Now there's reading reviews and looking over a book's prizes and getting recommended five other books that are sort of similar.
In a way it's more work than it used to be, back when I'd say oh that cover looks interesting, and here's a blurb from XYZ on the back--I spend a lot longer looking over books than I used to. But it's useful work, and I've incorporated it into how I think about buying them.
Anyway, where I was going with this is, now Amazon has their own AI, and if AI tries to replace the work of picking books, I think I'll just have to give up and slide into illiteracy, having seen how really terrible AI is at search. Duck Duck Go has incorporated it as well. It's weird because I think I've given it an honest try--for example, trying to prompt Copilot to give me a particular webpage or study--and sometimes it lies, or misrepresents what's in a link, or whatever, and it's such a waste of time. It's like...AI search treats you as though you're asking a question, and worse, treats itself as though it is capable of summarizing an answer. "I want to see link on exploring Jupiter." "Great, here, let me answer you and tell you what exploring Jupiter is like." No! Don't do the reading for me! Just give me something to read!
posted by mittens at 12:01 PM on November 18 [22 favorites]
In a way it's more work than it used to be, back when I'd say oh that cover looks interesting, and here's a blurb from XYZ on the back--I spend a lot longer looking over books than I used to. But it's useful work, and I've incorporated it into how I think about buying them.
Anyway, where I was going with this is, now Amazon has their own AI, and if AI tries to replace the work of picking books, I think I'll just have to give up and slide into illiteracy, having seen how really terrible AI is at search. Duck Duck Go has incorporated it as well. It's weird because I think I've given it an honest try--for example, trying to prompt Copilot to give me a particular webpage or study--and sometimes it lies, or misrepresents what's in a link, or whatever, and it's such a waste of time. It's like...AI search treats you as though you're asking a question, and worse, treats itself as though it is capable of summarizing an answer. "I want to see link on exploring Jupiter." "Great, here, let me answer you and tell you what exploring Jupiter is like." No! Don't do the reading for me! Just give me something to read!
posted by mittens at 12:01 PM on November 18 [22 favorites]
And here we all are, one step closer to Buy-n-Large.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 12:01 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 12:01 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
If you're going to combine AI with search, use it like a spam filter to remove all the AI-generated crap and content farms from the results.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:10 PM on November 18 [12 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:10 PM on November 18 [12 favorites]
I would love a little checkbox on the google search page that says "Include only human-generated results".
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:12 PM on November 18 [39 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:12 PM on November 18 [39 favorites]
It's not even about effort. It's that the signal-to-noise ratio has fallen so much--especially because of all the endless AI slop that's being generated--that we can no longer perform basic information retrieval tasks without being augmented by some AI assistant who will sort through the noise and distill information into something we can process.
It's true that search is pretty garbage now - but all this stuff, all these living-death services are always marketed as "you don't want to have to make an EFFORT, why should you have to TRY to do anything or GO anywhere, TRYING sucks amiright" when it is trying that makes us into full people. It's this horrible con that appeals to everyone's weaker impulses and fatigue and that takes some of the dreaded effort to resist. We've got a culture which repeatedly positions having to do anything - talk on the phone, write an email, go to the store, cook, be present with your family - as this unspeakable burden instead of self-formation. I'm not saying that every little stupid task in the day is some kind of wonderful opportunity to build character, but this rhetoric of "it's such a burden to need to think or speak or write" is so poisonous.
Like, I'll slack off when I'm dead, which will no doubt be quite soon the way things are going, but until then I'm not afraid to write a sentence or look at sources.
posted by Frowner at 12:18 PM on November 18 [39 favorites]
It's true that search is pretty garbage now - but all this stuff, all these living-death services are always marketed as "you don't want to have to make an EFFORT, why should you have to TRY to do anything or GO anywhere, TRYING sucks amiright" when it is trying that makes us into full people. It's this horrible con that appeals to everyone's weaker impulses and fatigue and that takes some of the dreaded effort to resist. We've got a culture which repeatedly positions having to do anything - talk on the phone, write an email, go to the store, cook, be present with your family - as this unspeakable burden instead of self-formation. I'm not saying that every little stupid task in the day is some kind of wonderful opportunity to build character, but this rhetoric of "it's such a burden to need to think or speak or write" is so poisonous.
Like, I'll slack off when I'm dead, which will no doubt be quite soon the way things are going, but until then I'm not afraid to write a sentence or look at sources.
posted by Frowner at 12:18 PM on November 18 [39 favorites]
Serendipitous searching, or finding something useful when you were looking for something else, is a valid and even vital way to find information. All online search options pretty much ignore it, and the virtues of call numbers, which put books together by subject, are lost in our benighted age. Eventually, I suspect, we will entirely lack the executive function necessary to search at all or make sense of a thought that couldn’t be printed on an index card.
Somewhere, the paw of Paul Otlet is curling its fingers.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:18 PM on November 18 [8 favorites]
Somewhere, the paw of Paul Otlet is curling its fingers.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:18 PM on November 18 [8 favorites]
I have implemented the advice from this article on all my devices, and am now unpleasantly surprised when I use some other device and am reminded that AI "overviews" in search results are a thing.
Personally the AI overviews are of negative value to me. I want to understand the sources of the information I am finding, so that I can evaluate their reliability, biases, recency, and context. AI glurge is never what I'm looking for, and is just annoying.
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:19 PM on November 18 [41 favorites]
Personally the AI overviews are of negative value to me. I want to understand the sources of the information I am finding, so that I can evaluate their reliability, biases, recency, and context. AI glurge is never what I'm looking for, and is just annoying.
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:19 PM on November 18 [41 favorites]
It's true that search is pretty garbage now - but all this stuff, all these living-death services are always marketed as "you don't want to have to make an EFFORT, why should you have to TRY to do anything or GO anywhere, TRYING sucks amiright" when it is trying that makes us into full people. It's this horrible con that appeals to everyone's weaker impulses and fatigue and that takes some of the dreaded effort to resist.
Or another way of looking at it is that the cost of failure has reached the point where we can't afford to spend the effort on trying? It's not that we're seeking the easy way out so much as we're just trying to survive?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:25 PM on November 18 [4 favorites]
Or another way of looking at it is that the cost of failure has reached the point where we can't afford to spend the effort on trying? It's not that we're seeking the easy way out so much as we're just trying to survive?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:25 PM on November 18 [4 favorites]
Inefficiency in search has long been the norm
The wave of articles claiming that "something" is needed to fix search, less than a year after a wave of articles, largely in the same publications, making it clear that big tech execs ruined search on purpose to maximize profits is... really something.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:29 PM on November 18 [33 favorites]
The wave of articles claiming that "something" is needed to fix search, less than a year after a wave of articles, largely in the same publications, making it clear that big tech execs ruined search on purpose to maximize profits is... really something.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:29 PM on November 18 [33 favorites]
We've got a culture which repeatedly positions having to do anything - talk on the phone, write an email, go to the store, cook, be present with your family - as this unspeakable burden instead of self-formation.
As someone with a host of disabilities, not spending my limited energy and pain-free time going to a store or writing emails means I can spend more time cooking or being present with my family. A bunch of the "effort" of modern life is stupid bullshit processes we've made infinitely worse in the past few decades. Shopping in particular. I'm pretty okay with giving up the character-building exercise of shopping if it means I can spend more time talking walks outside, reading books, creating things, and spending time with my loved ones. All of which have increased linearly with my decreasing of in-person shopping, as well as with online portals reducing the number of phone calls and messages I need to make to my pharmacies and doctors. But YMMV. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by brook horse at 12:49 PM on November 18 [19 favorites]
As someone with a host of disabilities, not spending my limited energy and pain-free time going to a store or writing emails means I can spend more time cooking or being present with my family. A bunch of the "effort" of modern life is stupid bullshit processes we've made infinitely worse in the past few decades. Shopping in particular. I'm pretty okay with giving up the character-building exercise of shopping if it means I can spend more time talking walks outside, reading books, creating things, and spending time with my loved ones. All of which have increased linearly with my decreasing of in-person shopping, as well as with online portals reducing the number of phone calls and messages I need to make to my pharmacies and doctors. But YMMV. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by brook horse at 12:49 PM on November 18 [19 favorites]
AI search is useful, but it's important to remember that AI generates plausible responses, not necessarily accurate ones. So, you can't trust the summary, you have to go back to the source.
As for books, I go by human reviewers. James Nicoll reads an reviews way too many books. There are people who post quarterly reviews of all they've read on r/horrorlit, there's the Smart B*tches who read trashy books, and the occasional 100 best lists. After seeing a book crop up on a couple of lists, I start to think that maybe I should read it.
posted by Spike Glee at 1:05 PM on November 18 [5 favorites]
As for books, I go by human reviewers. James Nicoll reads an reviews way too many books. There are people who post quarterly reviews of all they've read on r/horrorlit, there's the Smart B*tches who read trashy books, and the occasional 100 best lists. After seeing a book crop up on a couple of lists, I start to think that maybe I should read it.
posted by Spike Glee at 1:05 PM on November 18 [5 favorites]
If GPT can give google a kick in the ass and force them to at least roll back a bit of the enshitification I say go for it dude!
But, sadly, I suspect instead google will just implement its own enshitified AI search and GPT will never be all that great anyway.
posted by sotonohito at 1:09 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
But, sadly, I suspect instead google will just implement its own enshitified AI search and GPT will never be all that great anyway.
posted by sotonohito at 1:09 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
The biggest asset that a library has is librarians, and the best bookstores on earth are such because of the knowledge and passion of their owners and employees. It’s not just that the automation of search has gotten poorer, it’s that complete automation of search has never been successful. google’s page ranking, at it’s peak, was largely successful due to observing the linking and sharing patterns of humans to point to the best information. It started to go south when SEO made that information channel noisier. There is no “short cut” to high quality information other than an expert who has already sorted through the chaff.
posted by q*ben at 1:09 PM on November 18 [21 favorites]
posted by q*ben at 1:09 PM on November 18 [21 favorites]
As someone with a host of disabilities, not spending my limited energy and pain-free time going to a store or writing emails
Yes, and what is appropriate and helpful for people with disabilities gets spun as appropriate and helpful for people without disabilities. It is wonderful that we have, eg, easily accessible grocery delivery for people who are not able to go to the store. But we've had this conversation over and over on metafilter that always goes the same way - the fact that some people will always need assistive services is used to justify making their use universal and avoiding any discussion of drawbacks.
Like, I have incredibly bad vision. I am nearly blind without my glasses, and I've gotten to a point where even extremely strong lenses don't do what they used to do. I'm at the point, in fact, where I don't think I'm going to be safe to drive in a couple of years. Severe glaucoma also runs very strongly in my family, and although I don't have it so far, I am quite likely to develop it. Glasses have always been a godsend to me. I am quite likely to need surgery and medications later on, and I bet I'll need other assistive devices -reading software, fancy magnifiers, etc. All those things are great. But I would not advocate for everyone wearing glasses, or feel that no one needs to learn to read because we have text-to-speech software. In particular, now that it seems like people need distance viewing and outdoor time to maintain healthy vision, I would not say that people should just stay inside looking at screens all day because after all we have fancy vision correction technology.
I have to wear glasses, just as I can't walk long distances because of spinal stenosis. I have to make constant accommodations for my inability to walk more than a few hundred yards without pain. Sometimes I get things delivered! But I look back on the years before I developed stenosis and remember how much I enjoyed walking distances, and how great it was to just get up and set out and walk when I wanted to go somewhere - walk to the grocery store! Walk to the park! Walk around the lake! Go for a walk with a friend! I would never say that people who are strong and healthy and who can easily walk distances should always be sure to drive, because after all walking takes time and effort. (I add that I live in a poor neighborhood in a city - it's not that every walk around here was to a beauty spot.) We have technology so that I don't have to drive, and that's great for me, but society should be making it easier for people to walk more, not less.
it really shouldn't be a choice between "convenience is paramount for everyone at all times and there are no benefits to any kind of social friction" and "no one has any assistive services".
posted by Frowner at 1:09 PM on November 18 [28 favorites]
Yes, and what is appropriate and helpful for people with disabilities gets spun as appropriate and helpful for people without disabilities. It is wonderful that we have, eg, easily accessible grocery delivery for people who are not able to go to the store. But we've had this conversation over and over on metafilter that always goes the same way - the fact that some people will always need assistive services is used to justify making their use universal and avoiding any discussion of drawbacks.
Like, I have incredibly bad vision. I am nearly blind without my glasses, and I've gotten to a point where even extremely strong lenses don't do what they used to do. I'm at the point, in fact, where I don't think I'm going to be safe to drive in a couple of years. Severe glaucoma also runs very strongly in my family, and although I don't have it so far, I am quite likely to develop it. Glasses have always been a godsend to me. I am quite likely to need surgery and medications later on, and I bet I'll need other assistive devices -reading software, fancy magnifiers, etc. All those things are great. But I would not advocate for everyone wearing glasses, or feel that no one needs to learn to read because we have text-to-speech software. In particular, now that it seems like people need distance viewing and outdoor time to maintain healthy vision, I would not say that people should just stay inside looking at screens all day because after all we have fancy vision correction technology.
I have to wear glasses, just as I can't walk long distances because of spinal stenosis. I have to make constant accommodations for my inability to walk more than a few hundred yards without pain. Sometimes I get things delivered! But I look back on the years before I developed stenosis and remember how much I enjoyed walking distances, and how great it was to just get up and set out and walk when I wanted to go somewhere - walk to the grocery store! Walk to the park! Walk around the lake! Go for a walk with a friend! I would never say that people who are strong and healthy and who can easily walk distances should always be sure to drive, because after all walking takes time and effort. (I add that I live in a poor neighborhood in a city - it's not that every walk around here was to a beauty spot.) We have technology so that I don't have to drive, and that's great for me, but society should be making it easier for people to walk more, not less.
it really shouldn't be a choice between "convenience is paramount for everyone at all times and there are no benefits to any kind of social friction" and "no one has any assistive services".
posted by Frowner at 1:09 PM on November 18 [28 favorites]
AI search could go a bunch of ways, but one of the ways it could go is higher-quality results based on smaller training sets--smaller, field-specific sets of articles, say. I've seen a few beta versions of things like this, one from a well-known database provider and one from a major library tech company, and the new gee-whiz version did certain kinds of things that nobody much likes to do, including a semi-automated lit review. I'm excited/horrified to see how things will look in 18 months.
posted by cupcakeninja at 1:16 PM on November 18 [2 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 1:16 PM on November 18 [2 favorites]
I have never yet seen any indication, even the tiniest, that I'm wrong to say that all "AI" everywhere should be burnt to the ground. It's nothing but a way to funnel more money into the pockets of the oligarchy.
Someone linked upthread that you can add "&udm=14" to a google search to get rid of the "AI" overview that tells you to eat scissors and run with glue, but you can just bookmark this site and use it for searches instead of the regular google search bar, and it works great. Occasionally, I forget and type in the regular search bar, and am then like "what rotten garbage is THIS crap?".
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 1:20 PM on November 18 [12 favorites]
Someone linked upthread that you can add "&udm=14" to a google search to get rid of the "AI" overview that tells you to eat scissors and run with glue, but you can just bookmark this site and use it for searches instead of the regular google search bar, and it works great. Occasionally, I forget and type in the regular search bar, and am then like "what rotten garbage is THIS crap?".
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 1:20 PM on November 18 [12 favorites]
I suspect that the model will end up being "Pay us more and our AI will push you harder."
It ain't artificial, nor is it intelligence.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:21 PM on November 18 [4 favorites]
It ain't artificial, nor is it intelligence.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:21 PM on November 18 [4 favorites]
it really shouldn't be a choice between "convenience is paramount for everyone at all times and there are no benefits to any kind of social friction" and "no one has any assistive services".
Hard disagree. There should be zero social friction for anyone to get their needs met and it should never, ever be made more inconvenient simply for the sake of it. Regardless of whether or not you have a disability.
Not having to walk to get my needs met means I can walk for the sake of it. When I had to walk to get my needs met, I never walked for the sake of it, because all it takes is a handful of times pushing yourself through it when you don't have the energy because you have no other choice to build negative associations with walking and ensure you will never do it just for fun or meaning.
There will still be social friction for lots and lots and lots and lots of other things that people might actually pursue if they didn't use up all of their time and energy on meeting their basic needs. The idea that we have to force people into "self formation" by making it more inconvenient to meet their needs rather than giving them the space to pursue meaning without making them use all their energy on surviving is deeply cynical, and basically capitulates to the conservative idea that people are fundamentally lazy and no one will work if we just give them handouts.
It's not saying "no one should ever do x since we have assistive tech," it's saying "no one should ever be forced to do x to meet their needs just because you think they should put more effort in." Let people put that effort into other places in their lives and don't assume "I don't want to put in the effort to walk 20 minutes to pick up something at the store" means they 1) aren't putting that effort into something else, 2) that there is some kind of moral failing or psychological harm they are doing themself by choosing to use their time differently.
One may make their soap by hand if they like, but expecting anyone to do that as part of their daily routine because it's "better" (as an experience, rather than for practical reasons) if people go through the process of hand making soap rather than just buying it is silly.
posted by brook horse at 1:32 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
Hard disagree. There should be zero social friction for anyone to get their needs met and it should never, ever be made more inconvenient simply for the sake of it. Regardless of whether or not you have a disability.
Not having to walk to get my needs met means I can walk for the sake of it. When I had to walk to get my needs met, I never walked for the sake of it, because all it takes is a handful of times pushing yourself through it when you don't have the energy because you have no other choice to build negative associations with walking and ensure you will never do it just for fun or meaning.
There will still be social friction for lots and lots and lots and lots of other things that people might actually pursue if they didn't use up all of their time and energy on meeting their basic needs. The idea that we have to force people into "self formation" by making it more inconvenient to meet their needs rather than giving them the space to pursue meaning without making them use all their energy on surviving is deeply cynical, and basically capitulates to the conservative idea that people are fundamentally lazy and no one will work if we just give them handouts.
It's not saying "no one should ever do x since we have assistive tech," it's saying "no one should ever be forced to do x to meet their needs just because you think they should put more effort in." Let people put that effort into other places in their lives and don't assume "I don't want to put in the effort to walk 20 minutes to pick up something at the store" means they 1) aren't putting that effort into something else, 2) that there is some kind of moral failing or psychological harm they are doing themself by choosing to use their time differently.
One may make their soap by hand if they like, but expecting anyone to do that as part of their daily routine because it's "better" (as an experience, rather than for practical reasons) if people go through the process of hand making soap rather than just buying it is silly.
posted by brook horse at 1:32 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
Where is bombastic lowercase pronouncements when they are needed?
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:33 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:33 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
Where is bombastic lowercase pronouncements when they are needed?
ai search must be destroyed
posted by Ryvar at 1:40 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
ai search must be destroyed
posted by Ryvar at 1:40 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
Though that was lowercase, it was not bombastic.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:42 PM on November 18 [7 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:42 PM on November 18 [7 favorites]
those who build ai search starve our children and we will drink their blood and consume their flesh
posted by Ryvar at 1:46 PM on November 18 [14 favorites]
posted by Ryvar at 1:46 PM on November 18 [14 favorites]
(While I’m on Team Locally Hosted Open Source AI, I am entirely serious about passionately hating AI search, even beyond my usual hate for large corporate AI)
If you're going to combine AI with search, use it like a spam filter to remove all the AI-generated crap and content farms from the results.
This and stripping ads out of Youtube are some of the best potential applications I’ve come across recently. Marketing speak has its own rhythms and inflection, its own inner culture, and I bet it’s a pattern that can be identified and filtered for the good of all humankind.
posted by Ryvar at 1:49 PM on November 18 [8 favorites]
If you're going to combine AI with search, use it like a spam filter to remove all the AI-generated crap and content farms from the results.
This and stripping ads out of Youtube are some of the best potential applications I’ve come across recently. Marketing speak has its own rhythms and inflection, its own inner culture, and I bet it’s a pattern that can be identified and filtered for the good of all humankind.
posted by Ryvar at 1:49 PM on November 18 [8 favorites]
AI has a number of possible uses in search, but none of those uses that I have in mind involve producing answers to show the search engine user.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 1:50 PM on November 18 [3 favorites]
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 1:50 PM on November 18 [3 favorites]
We've secretly replaced the inefficiency of occasionally having to rephrase your question with the extreme inefficiency of AI that consumes a lot more power, pollutes a lot more water, and sometimes just makes up a plausible seeming answer. Let's see if anyone notices!
posted by fedward at 1:50 PM on November 18 [17 favorites]
posted by fedward at 1:50 PM on November 18 [17 favorites]
Some things are worth putting effort into, and some aren't. Figuring out if the information you are consuming is true, and what it means in context, is worth some effort. Those who don't have the time / money / spoons to put in that effort themselves can find some trusted authorities to believe instead (though they should put still a little bit of effort in to ensure those authorities really can be trusted.)
Nobody needs "AI" to replace trusted authorities or validated sources. It hallucinates and always will because that's the nature of large language models, and even the things it accurately recycles from its training data have lost all context.
There are lots of things labor saving devices can and should do for us, but "learning things" just isn't on that list. It's counterproductive.
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:51 PM on November 18 [11 favorites]
Nobody needs "AI" to replace trusted authorities or validated sources. It hallucinates and always will because that's the nature of large language models, and even the things it accurately recycles from its training data have lost all context.
There are lots of things labor saving devices can and should do for us, but "learning things" just isn't on that list. It's counterproductive.
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:51 PM on November 18 [11 favorites]
I'm with you, Ryvar, on AI search. Don't want it, don't need it. The hardest thing with the current search paradigm is to get around "helpful" autosuggest which almost always messes with my results. AI will only make that worse.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:53 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:53 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
Figuring out if the information you are consuming is true, and what it means in context, is worth some effort.
100%, and I agree that AI should never be used for information gathering because it sucks at that. The examples Frowner gave weren't about that, though--they were about shopping in-person instead of online, writing e-mails, talking on the phone, etc. I don't think it's worth the effort to shop in-person instead of online, or to call on the phone instead of using a portal to set up appointments or refill my meds. Writing e-mails varies depending on whether I'm trying to connect with a person or if I'm just navigating some corpo-template bullshit.
Those things aren't inherently worth effort, and much of it is the product of enshittification brought on by capitalism. We used to have milk delivery, after all. Things aren't inherently worth doing just because they're inconvenient when the inconvenience is artificially constructed in a society designed to extract as much of our time, money, and energy as possible rather than allowing us time to seek meaning and purpose.
posted by brook horse at 2:03 PM on November 18 [5 favorites]
100%, and I agree that AI should never be used for information gathering because it sucks at that. The examples Frowner gave weren't about that, though--they were about shopping in-person instead of online, writing e-mails, talking on the phone, etc. I don't think it's worth the effort to shop in-person instead of online, or to call on the phone instead of using a portal to set up appointments or refill my meds. Writing e-mails varies depending on whether I'm trying to connect with a person or if I'm just navigating some corpo-template bullshit.
Those things aren't inherently worth effort, and much of it is the product of enshittification brought on by capitalism. We used to have milk delivery, after all. Things aren't inherently worth doing just because they're inconvenient when the inconvenience is artificially constructed in a society designed to extract as much of our time, money, and energy as possible rather than allowing us time to seek meaning and purpose.
posted by brook horse at 2:03 PM on November 18 [5 favorites]
Though that was lowercase, it was not bombastic.
we should replace ai search with s o r t i t i o n
(i miss you, blp, wherever you are!)
posted by mittens at 2:04 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
we should replace ai search with s o r t i t i o n
(i miss you, blp, wherever you are!)
posted by mittens at 2:04 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
Although ChatGPT and Perplexity and google AI Overviews cite their sources with (small) footnotes or bars to click on, not clicking on those links is the entire point.
ChatGPT will copy information from google who will copy information from Reddit who will copy information from their users who will tell you to put glue in your pizza cheese.
Not only will LLMs destroy our search engines and sources of information by flooding the web with inaccurate slop, but they will force us back into an oral tradition where people "know" things because fucksmith42069 said so somewhere in the 80 billion tokens of training data.
posted by AlSweigart at 2:15 PM on November 18 [11 favorites]
ChatGPT will copy information from google who will copy information from Reddit who will copy information from their users who will tell you to put glue in your pizza cheese.
Not only will LLMs destroy our search engines and sources of information by flooding the web with inaccurate slop, but they will force us back into an oral tradition where people "know" things because fucksmith42069 said so somewhere in the 80 billion tokens of training data.
posted by AlSweigart at 2:15 PM on November 18 [11 favorites]
(Making 100% sure those sources actually say the "cited" thing in the AI-generated response is also an open research question- not solved yet!)
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 2:26 PM on November 18 [7 favorites]
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 2:26 PM on November 18 [7 favorites]
I can't recall which library search it was, but I distinctly recall one of the libraries offering a "Would you like to browse books shelved near this book" when you looked up a specific book. It was the equivalent, nearly, of actually being in the stacks. I've always missed having that option.
posted by drossdragon at 2:27 PM on November 18 [15 favorites]
posted by drossdragon at 2:27 PM on November 18 [15 favorites]
Where is bombastic lowercase pronouncements
estonia, last i heard (did not use ai for this search)
posted by HearHere at 2:28 PM on November 18 [3 favorites]
estonia, last i heard (did not use ai for this search)
posted by HearHere at 2:28 PM on November 18 [3 favorites]
"you don't want to have to make an EFFORT, why should you have to TRY to do anything or GO anywhere, TRYING sucks amiright" when it is trying that makes us into full people.
Somewhere around fall of 2020, we were having a Zoom meeting with extended family and the kids were comparing notes on their remote learning experience. One of the grownups asked if virtual classes were generally cameras-on or cameras-off. All the kids instantly said "off," and my niece - who was around 15 or 16 at the time - followed up with "If you have your camera on in class, people will think you're trying."
posted by nickmark at 2:56 PM on November 18 [7 favorites]
Somewhere around fall of 2020, we were having a Zoom meeting with extended family and the kids were comparing notes on their remote learning experience. One of the grownups asked if virtual classes were generally cameras-on or cameras-off. All the kids instantly said "off," and my niece - who was around 15 or 16 at the time - followed up with "If you have your camera on in class, people will think you're trying."
posted by nickmark at 2:56 PM on November 18 [7 favorites]
I’m sort of with Frowner. I have weird vision due to a combination of brain damage and eye issues, to the point where reading book length works is just not possible. So I use audiobooks, which are, mostly great, but there are some things they cannot do and others that they do poorly. I miss being able to read print at length, while I still like being able to enjoy fiction. I’m really glad I don’t have to pick.
On another tack, I used to be a bookseller, and I was f-ing awesome at it. Any person (or search feature) can get you a book that you know you want, but a real bookseller can get you the books you don’t know you want yet. I guarantee that, if you love books, a good bookseller will blow every other book shopping experience out of the water. With a little work on both your parts, you can work around social anxieties, shame at your reading interests, almost any impediment, because they want you to love what you read. Why did I stop? No online shopping experience will do that for you. A really good reader’s advisory librarian can, but you can’t really do that on line, either.
I don’t think it’s fair to pillory people who long for those things, anymore than I think it’s fair to pillory people who can’t afford in time, money, effort, whatever those things. They aren’t in opposition; they are just artifacts of our poor suffering world.
I don’t think AI will ever get there, to bring it back to
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:29 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
On another tack, I used to be a bookseller, and I was f-ing awesome at it. Any person (or search feature) can get you a book that you know you want, but a real bookseller can get you the books you don’t know you want yet. I guarantee that, if you love books, a good bookseller will blow every other book shopping experience out of the water. With a little work on both your parts, you can work around social anxieties, shame at your reading interests, almost any impediment, because they want you to love what you read. Why did I stop? No online shopping experience will do that for you. A really good reader’s advisory librarian can, but you can’t really do that on line, either.
I don’t think it’s fair to pillory people who long for those things, anymore than I think it’s fair to pillory people who can’t afford in time, money, effort, whatever those things. They aren’t in opposition; they are just artifacts of our poor suffering world.
I don’t think AI will ever get there, to bring it back to
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:29 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
I can't recall which library search it was, but I distinctly recall one of the libraries offering a "Would you like to browse books shelved near this book" when you looked up a specific book.
Our catalog does that, and it’s a feature of the underlying system, Primo, which tends to be more often used at larger research libraries.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:02 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
Our catalog does that, and it’s a feature of the underlying system, Primo, which tends to be more often used at larger research libraries.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:02 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
Wait, is this why google sucks ass now? I might have known. Thanks, The Atl -- oh, no
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:04 PM on November 18 [4 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:04 PM on November 18 [4 favorites]
I just won an award for a paper I published. The paper is good but it’s real innovation is a novel dataset, which I compiled from a book I found on the stacks. I saw the book and was like, man that’s a really big book, it’s too big to be a narrative of what I’m interested in, but what could it be? It turns out to be a lexicon of individual soldiers in the war I was studying. It was an incredible resource, and I would have never thought to search for it.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:11 PM on November 18 [14 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:11 PM on November 18 [14 favorites]
I sometimes wonder if using “search” to describe interactions with LLMs complicates the discussion.
For instance, in the last two weeks, here are a few of the things that I asked Claude about:
1) there was a speaker about eight years ago that was reasonably expensive, live six to ten gran, that was supposed to revolutionize the industry. Do you remember what that was?
ANSWER: “Based on the timeframe and price range you mentioned, I believe you may be referring to the Devialet Phantom speaker.”
2) What were the blue and black WiFi routers in the late 90s and early 2000s.
ANSWER: “The most iconic blue and black routers from that era were made by Linksys, particularly the WRT54G series, which was released in 2002 and became extremely popular.”
3) When the Griffith Observatory is closed, can you still walk around the outside of the building?
ANSWER: “Yes, when the grounds are open, you can walk around the exterior of the building and enjoy the outdoor spaces. The terraces and walkways around the observatory offer some of the best views of Los Angeles, the Hollywood Sign, and the surrounding area.”
These are all things that, pre-ChatGPT, I would have struggled to various degrees to find an answer to. In fact, I spent several minutes searching the web for an answer to the Griffith Observatory question, including time on the official site, before thinking to ask Claude, who quickly gave me an answer.
I loath a lot of the “AI will make everything better” rhetoric, but I have found that “searching” a knowledge base the way I would ask a friend has profoundly increased the likelihood that I’ll engage in curiosity these days.
posted by ifatfirstyoudontsucceed at 4:14 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
For instance, in the last two weeks, here are a few of the things that I asked Claude about:
1) there was a speaker about eight years ago that was reasonably expensive, live six to ten gran, that was supposed to revolutionize the industry. Do you remember what that was?
ANSWER: “Based on the timeframe and price range you mentioned, I believe you may be referring to the Devialet Phantom speaker.”
2) What were the blue and black WiFi routers in the late 90s and early 2000s.
ANSWER: “The most iconic blue and black routers from that era were made by Linksys, particularly the WRT54G series, which was released in 2002 and became extremely popular.”
3) When the Griffith Observatory is closed, can you still walk around the outside of the building?
ANSWER: “Yes, when the grounds are open, you can walk around the exterior of the building and enjoy the outdoor spaces. The terraces and walkways around the observatory offer some of the best views of Los Angeles, the Hollywood Sign, and the surrounding area.”
These are all things that, pre-ChatGPT, I would have struggled to various degrees to find an answer to. In fact, I spent several minutes searching the web for an answer to the Griffith Observatory question, including time on the official site, before thinking to ask Claude, who quickly gave me an answer.
I loath a lot of the “AI will make everything better” rhetoric, but I have found that “searching” a knowledge base the way I would ask a friend has profoundly increased the likelihood that I’ll engage in curiosity these days.
posted by ifatfirstyoudontsucceed at 4:14 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
But, sadly, I suspect instead google will just implement its own enshitified AI search and GPT will never be all that great anyway.
Mostly this article, and the ensuing discussion, has confused the hell out of me, because google has loudly, pointedly, repeatedly announced the integration of AI into all its searches, unless you go to great lengths to block them from doing so. They've been fucking that chicken for YEARS now. Doesn't matter how much you spend on your AI-chatbot-search-curator-whatever-the-fuck-it-is: if the rest of the company is busy min-maxing every last advertising dollar out of your remaining users by ruining your search engine, your newly-AI-powered searches are going to be awful, just like all your non-AI-powered searches used to be awful, because you've consciously decided to make your flagship product suck shit off the floor in a deeply misguided attempt at Maximizing Shareholder Value ®
I don't know how the Atlantic managed to wring an entire article out of insisting otherwise, but here we are.
posted by Mayor West at 4:24 PM on November 18 [12 favorites]
Mostly this article, and the ensuing discussion, has confused the hell out of me, because google has loudly, pointedly, repeatedly announced the integration of AI into all its searches, unless you go to great lengths to block them from doing so. They've been fucking that chicken for YEARS now. Doesn't matter how much you spend on your AI-chatbot-search-curator-whatever-the-fuck-it-is: if the rest of the company is busy min-maxing every last advertising dollar out of your remaining users by ruining your search engine, your newly-AI-powered searches are going to be awful, just like all your non-AI-powered searches used to be awful, because you've consciously decided to make your flagship product suck shit off the floor in a deeply misguided attempt at Maximizing Shareholder Value ®
I don't know how the Atlantic managed to wring an entire article out of insisting otherwise, but here we are.
posted by Mayor West at 4:24 PM on November 18 [12 favorites]
Just yesterday, the fact that google's AI overview returned pancetta and bacon as kosher substitutes for salt pork (when searching for the phrase "salt pork substitute kosher") was making the rounds on Bluesky. I tried it, and it gave me those results. Today when I try it, the AI overview results don't even show up. Now that's efficiency!
posted by mollweide at 4:33 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
posted by mollweide at 4:33 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
In fact, I spent several minutes searching the web for an answer to the Griffith Observatory question, including time on the official site, before thinking to ask Claude, who quickly gave me an answer.
You can always count on AI to quickly give you an answer. Whether or not it’s the correct answer will become clear when you get to the gates of the Observatory.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:03 PM on November 18 [23 favorites]
You can always count on AI to quickly give you an answer. Whether or not it’s the correct answer will become clear when you get to the gates of the Observatory.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:03 PM on November 18 [23 favorites]
There is that parable from Buddhism…
Chop wood, carry water.
(Practice mindfulness)
CHOP WOOD, CARRY WATER!
Or thanks to AI…
Here is a selection of videos of people chopping wood.
Here are some buckets to buy.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:04 PM on November 18 [9 favorites]
Chop wood, carry water.
(Practice mindfulness)
CHOP WOOD, CARRY WATER!
Or thanks to AI…
Here is a selection of videos of people chopping wood.
Here are some buckets to buy.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:04 PM on November 18 [9 favorites]
this is probably getting a bit too meta but hey look at where we are...
today there FPPs promising the end of search, the end of productivity, and the end of UTIs. I'm not going to take odds on which of these is most likely to actually end, tho...
posted by turbowombat at 5:10 PM on November 18 [3 favorites]
today there FPPs promising the end of search, the end of productivity, and the end of UTIs. I'm not going to take odds on which of these is most likely to actually end, tho...
posted by turbowombat at 5:10 PM on November 18 [3 favorites]
Count me in as someone who is confused by the framing around efficiency, when the real issue seems to be quality. AI search is not worse because there are fewer opportunities to stumble across something interesting, but rather because I can’t trust the results.
This isn’t a really complete thought, but I think another dimension along which search has gotten worse, which also applies to other recent tech changes, is the way it optimizes for the general over the specific. To give a non-search example, typing on a piece of glass is much less accurate than a keyboard, so phone companies have to manage this with predictive tech quite aggressively. Autocomplete is the obvious example; the less obvious example is that as you’re typing, the size of keys on the “keyboard” change (invisibly to the user), based on what it thinks you probably want to say. The problem is that this means it is incredibly frustrating to try to express yourself using field-specific, rare, or slang words. Search has become similar, I think. I now have to repeat google searches over and over adding different permutations of quotation marks just to make sure that terms I intentionally added don’t get dropped or “corrected” into something useless. It’s harder to track down an actual primary source. It all feels more interpolated, blurry, general, and like you’re being nudged away from having or expressing a specific but niche thought into whatever the nearest local minimum is.
posted by en forme de poire at 5:11 PM on November 18 [24 favorites]
This isn’t a really complete thought, but I think another dimension along which search has gotten worse, which also applies to other recent tech changes, is the way it optimizes for the general over the specific. To give a non-search example, typing on a piece of glass is much less accurate than a keyboard, so phone companies have to manage this with predictive tech quite aggressively. Autocomplete is the obvious example; the less obvious example is that as you’re typing, the size of keys on the “keyboard” change (invisibly to the user), based on what it thinks you probably want to say. The problem is that this means it is incredibly frustrating to try to express yourself using field-specific, rare, or slang words. Search has become similar, I think. I now have to repeat google searches over and over adding different permutations of quotation marks just to make sure that terms I intentionally added don’t get dropped or “corrected” into something useless. It’s harder to track down an actual primary source. It all feels more interpolated, blurry, general, and like you’re being nudged away from having or expressing a specific but niche thought into whatever the nearest local minimum is.
posted by en forme de poire at 5:11 PM on November 18 [24 favorites]
The problem is definitely accuracy. This fall I was helping host a party in a local city park. I've been using the park for over a decade so I knew the park rules. Still, we wanted to find something affirming the alcoholic beverages would be okay. What I discovered is that there are now several pages of AI generated content with various ranges of misinformation on the park. Simple examples if you are knowledgeable (e.g. the park is in south Burlington, but not in the completely separate municipality of South Burlington as a few described). These pages listed a range of restrictions which do not exist, including the incorrect information that alcohol is prohibited. The google AI summary helpfully summarized the incorrect content listings to respond to my search with this incorrect answer. It took me nearly 30 minutes to find the correct information.
I hope they find a way to improve this, but it will likely require somehow finding a way to go back to primary sources because the pool of information being used to generate answers is already getting so polluted. I only was able to find the correct information because I already knew what it was.
posted by meinvt at 5:24 PM on November 18 [11 favorites]
I hope they find a way to improve this, but it will likely require somehow finding a way to go back to primary sources because the pool of information being used to generate answers is already getting so polluted. I only was able to find the correct information because I already knew what it was.
posted by meinvt at 5:24 PM on November 18 [11 favorites]
Anyone claiming that these kinds of "AI" will increase efficiency IN ANY WAY is either a fool or a shill. No exceptions. The energy costs alone are lethal to that premise.
posted by JHarris at 6:03 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 6:03 PM on November 18 [10 favorites]
I just found out bombastic lowercase pronouncements's account is closed, and I'm really sad about that.
posted by JHarris at 6:07 PM on November 18 [17 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 6:07 PM on November 18 [17 favorites]
Someone should re-make a search engine that works like google used to a decade ago. I'm sure it would be a big hit!
posted by ovvl at 7:33 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
posted by ovvl at 7:33 PM on November 18 [6 favorites]
The lizard is eating its own tail. We have an ouroboros of declining quality because people are using AI to write inaccurate articles that are being published on the web, which are being indexed by AI that then return more inaccurate results, which are used to publish further even more inaccurate articles…
Enshittification specifically refers to advertising creeping into everything, but we also need a word for this specific phenomenon. It’s dangerous and apparently inexorable. I’m getting weary and losing hope.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:05 PM on November 18 [3 favorites]
Enshittification specifically refers to advertising creeping into everything, but we also need a word for this specific phenomenon. It’s dangerous and apparently inexorable. I’m getting weary and losing hope.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:05 PM on November 18 [3 favorites]
My old person grunting predictions is that we will soon only trust our local, immediate community of people we can touch / look at / interact with in real life.
So maybe this whole disaster of social media and AI will drive me back to community, and to “love the one I’m with” in terms of neighbors and so on. On the bright side.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:10 PM on November 18 [4 favorites]
So maybe this whole disaster of social media and AI will drive me back to community, and to “love the one I’m with” in terms of neighbors and so on. On the bright side.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:10 PM on November 18 [4 favorites]
Well I tuned into Claude for the first time and entered "Chop wood, carry water."
I appreciate the reference to the Zen teaching. Indeed, before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. It speaks to the importance of staying grounded in life's fundamental tasks while pursuing deeper understanding.
I'm far from a power prompt engineer but that seemed to be a reasonable answer. Mifi has found the local minima of the "Trough of AI Disillusionment" but that is transitory and it generally seems to be a new tool like spell check or language translation that will need to be used with care but will be very powerful. I actually have a slide rule up on the shelf, coolest tool, that I rarely use anymore.
posted by sammyo at 9:23 PM on November 18 [2 favorites]
I appreciate the reference to the Zen teaching. Indeed, before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. It speaks to the importance of staying grounded in life's fundamental tasks while pursuing deeper understanding.
I'm far from a power prompt engineer but that seemed to be a reasonable answer. Mifi has found the local minima of the "Trough of AI Disillusionment" but that is transitory and it generally seems to be a new tool like spell check or language translation that will need to be used with care but will be very powerful. I actually have a slide rule up on the shelf, coolest tool, that I rarely use anymore.
posted by sammyo at 9:23 PM on November 18 [2 favorites]
Although ChatGPT and Perplexity and google AI Overviews cite their sources with (small) footnotes or bars to click on, not clicking on those links is the entire point.
They don't want us to click on those links, because so many are purely AI-invented nonsense.
Someone linked upthread that you can add "&udm=14" to a google search to get rid of the "AI" overview that tells you to eat scissors and run with glue, but you can just bookmark this site and use it for searches instead of the regular google search bar, and it works great. Occasionally, I forget and type in the regular search bar, and am then like "what rotten garbage is THIS crap?".
Well, you can do it the hard way, but the link upthread is actually showing you how to make this the default in your browser, so you never see the AI garbage even if you forget to go around it. It changed my life.
a growing number of paid advertisements, speciously relevant links engineered to top the search algorithm, and erroneous results. Generative AI promises to address those moments of frustration by providing a very different experience.
"Hey, we completely fucked up this thing you've used for decades to make your life easier and much more interesting! Here's a solution we made to fix that - aren't we great? Also, just by the way, but don't tell everyone - the next iteration will make sure you only see any content from anyone anywhere, ever if they paid us to recommend it to you or you agree to watch a number of excruciating advertisements before, during and after."
I'm sure there are useful applications for AI, but searching the Internet is not one of them.
posted by dg at 10:42 PM on November 18 [7 favorites]
They don't want us to click on those links, because so many are purely AI-invented nonsense.
Someone linked upthread that you can add "&udm=14" to a google search to get rid of the "AI" overview that tells you to eat scissors and run with glue, but you can just bookmark this site and use it for searches instead of the regular google search bar, and it works great. Occasionally, I forget and type in the regular search bar, and am then like "what rotten garbage is THIS crap?".
Well, you can do it the hard way, but the link upthread is actually showing you how to make this the default in your browser, so you never see the AI garbage even if you forget to go around it. It changed my life.
a growing number of paid advertisements, speciously relevant links engineered to top the search algorithm, and erroneous results. Generative AI promises to address those moments of frustration by providing a very different experience.
"Hey, we completely fucked up this thing you've used for decades to make your life easier and much more interesting! Here's a solution we made to fix that - aren't we great? Also, just by the way, but don't tell everyone - the next iteration will make sure you only see any content from anyone anywhere, ever if they paid us to recommend it to you or you agree to watch a number of excruciating advertisements before, during and after."
I'm sure there are useful applications for AI, but searching the Internet is not one of them.
posted by dg at 10:42 PM on November 18 [7 favorites]
I have found that “searching” a knowledge base the way I would ask a friend has profoundly increased the likelihood that I’ll engage in curiosity these days.
well it's your world now i suppose
posted by busted_crayons at 12:08 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
well it's your world now i suppose
posted by busted_crayons at 12:08 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
At least google's AI overview seemingly cites its sources, but it'll presumably interpret the sources wrong sometimes, unless they've designed it to quote the soruce, likjely people check the source less.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:29 AM on November 19 [1 favorite]
posted by jeffburdges at 1:29 AM on November 19 [1 favorite]
Could we please stop making references to Idiocracy?
It was a film with an explicitly eugenicist premise.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:31 AM on November 19 [7 favorites]
It was a film with an explicitly eugenicist premise.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:31 AM on November 19 [7 favorites]
Yesterday ChatGPT told me that an argument I was having with someone was because they were actually using a type of False Equivalence argument. I would not have had the time to figure that out. It was a super useful insight, was it absolutely necessary, no, but I was surprised and impressed by that.
posted by polymodus at 1:59 AM on November 19 [2 favorites]
posted by polymodus at 1:59 AM on November 19 [2 favorites]
Idiocracy needs a remake where people have become stupid from higher CO2 levels, pollutants, and yes social media.
Idiocracy's eugenicist premise was annoying but largely a macguffin, which afaik few take seriously. I think a remake would be justified primarily for ecological messaging and it being a funny setting, but yes sure removing the eugenicist premise makes the movie more enjoyably. Yes, Elon Musk takes intelligence eugenics serious, but afaik anybody like Musk who wants more babies from "smarter" people, also wants more babies from everybody, which makes them even more problematic.
As an aside, we should've more art that discusses behavioral sink theory in relation to social media too. As an easy example, The Beautiful Ones by Prince could've lyrics tweaked for this purpose..
After day 600, the social breakdown continued and the population declined toward extinction. During this period females ceased to reproduce. Their male counterparts withdrew completely, never engaging in courtship or fighting and only engaging in tasks that were essential to their health. They ate, drank, slept, and groomed themselves – all solitary pursuits. Sleek, healthy coats and an absence of scars characterized these males. They were dubbed "the beautiful ones". Breeding never resumed and behavior patterns were permanently changed.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:07 AM on November 19 [2 favorites]
Idiocracy's eugenicist premise was annoying but largely a macguffin, which afaik few take seriously. I think a remake would be justified primarily for ecological messaging and it being a funny setting, but yes sure removing the eugenicist premise makes the movie more enjoyably. Yes, Elon Musk takes intelligence eugenics serious, but afaik anybody like Musk who wants more babies from "smarter" people, also wants more babies from everybody, which makes them even more problematic.
As an aside, we should've more art that discusses behavioral sink theory in relation to social media too. As an easy example, The Beautiful Ones by Prince could've lyrics tweaked for this purpose..
After day 600, the social breakdown continued and the population declined toward extinction. During this period females ceased to reproduce. Their male counterparts withdrew completely, never engaging in courtship or fighting and only engaging in tasks that were essential to their health. They ate, drank, slept, and groomed themselves – all solitary pursuits. Sleek, healthy coats and an absence of scars characterized these males. They were dubbed "the beautiful ones". Breeding never resumed and behavior patterns were permanently changed.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:07 AM on November 19 [2 favorites]
> an ouroboros of declining quality
Baudrillard believed that society had become so saturated with these simulacra and human life so saturated with the constructs of society that all meaning was becoming meaningless by being infinitely mutable; he called this phenomenon the "precession of simulacra".
posted by Rat Spatula at 3:15 AM on November 19 [5 favorites]
Baudrillard believed that society had become so saturated with these simulacra and human life so saturated with the constructs of society that all meaning was becoming meaningless by being infinitely mutable; he called this phenomenon the "precession of simulacra".
posted by Rat Spatula at 3:15 AM on November 19 [5 favorites]
This article reminds me of what Wolfgang Pauli supposedly said when reviewing a paper: "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."
I really don't know whether the author is optimistic or pessimistic about AI search, but he definitely seems to think that it will improve I guess?
Meanwhile here on the ground I already spend lots of time on forums helping people who have been mistakenly "informed" by an AI search, and it's harder and harder to find what I'm looking for when I search myself.
Considering that every single one of these ridiculously wrong AI outputs is being fed right in to teach the next generation of AI, I just don't see it getting better.
posted by mmoncur at 3:34 AM on November 19 [5 favorites]
I really don't know whether the author is optimistic or pessimistic about AI search, but he definitely seems to think that it will improve I guess?
Meanwhile here on the ground I already spend lots of time on forums helping people who have been mistakenly "informed" by an AI search, and it's harder and harder to find what I'm looking for when I search myself.
Considering that every single one of these ridiculously wrong AI outputs is being fed right in to teach the next generation of AI, I just don't see it getting better.
posted by mmoncur at 3:34 AM on November 19 [5 favorites]
The problem with AI search is that it does not return true results. It cannot return true results, and it cannot tell whether it is returning true results.
I'm currently looking into what 'simultaneous' means and it's not my field so I'm having trouble finding the field-specific terminology that will let me find what I'm looking for. I thought I'd entertain myself by seeing what the current state of AI 'searching' is.
Prompt: Can I have a bibliography of sources about human perception of simultaneity, please? Format the list like this:
Article title
Author
Year
DOI
ChatGPT served up a list of eight articles.
The first article is one that doesn't exist, by authors who have never published together (and have very common names so may not exist at all), with a DOI that doesn't resolve.
The second article on the list also doesn't exist and has the same author-may-or-may-not-exist issue, and has a DOI that does exist but resolves to a paper in a completely different field.
The third article on the list does not exist, one of the authors is literally called 'Sham' (and doesn't exist), and the DOI doesn't resolve.
After that I gave up.
It's only more efficient if you don't care and nobody will ever read what you write.
posted by ngaiotonga at 4:08 AM on November 19 [18 favorites]
I'm currently looking into what 'simultaneous' means and it's not my field so I'm having trouble finding the field-specific terminology that will let me find what I'm looking for. I thought I'd entertain myself by seeing what the current state of AI 'searching' is.
Prompt: Can I have a bibliography of sources about human perception of simultaneity, please? Format the list like this:
Article title
Author
Year
DOI
ChatGPT served up a list of eight articles.
The first article is one that doesn't exist, by authors who have never published together (and have very common names so may not exist at all), with a DOI that doesn't resolve.
The second article on the list also doesn't exist and has the same author-may-or-may-not-exist issue, and has a DOI that does exist but resolves to a paper in a completely different field.
The third article on the list does not exist, one of the authors is literally called 'Sham' (and doesn't exist), and the DOI doesn't resolve.
After that I gave up.
It's only more efficient if you don't care and nobody will ever read what you write.
posted by ngaiotonga at 4:08 AM on November 19 [18 favorites]
I don’t know how we can communicate it to people that AI doesn’t and can’t tell the truth. So many examples in this thread and yet someone posting back who still takes AI search results at their word. It really bamboozles and depresses me. Similarly with human lies, really.
posted by lokta at 4:13 AM on November 19 [11 favorites]
posted by lokta at 4:13 AM on November 19 [11 favorites]
People are willing to embrace a lot of bullshit. The world is proving that on multiple fronts. Propaganda and advertising work pretty damn well. Lies runs while the truth walks, and lies have been given a private jet while the truth has taken a pipe to the kneecaps.
posted by rikschell at 4:37 AM on November 19 [7 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 4:37 AM on November 19 [7 favorites]
and lies have been given a private jet while the truth has taken a pipe to the kneecaps.
I used to be a search engine like you, but then I took an arrow in the knee.
I couldn't quite remember the line, so I used duck duck go. First link went to wikipedia with the complete quote.
Duck, for me at least, has usually been good about generating good search results. I wonder how much of this is "search is terrible now" and how much is really "google, specifically, is terrible now" but people are just so used to google they keep going without really trying out the alternatives.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 4:50 AM on November 19
I used to be a search engine like you, but then I took an arrow in the knee.
I couldn't quite remember the line, so I used duck duck go. First link went to wikipedia with the complete quote.
Duck, for me at least, has usually been good about generating good search results. I wonder how much of this is "search is terrible now" and how much is really "google, specifically, is terrible now" but people are just so used to google they keep going without really trying out the alternatives.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 4:50 AM on November 19
It's so weird, seeing all the takes on AI that are based on its flaws today, both the underlying technology and the interface experience. Like, yes, cars were not great in the 1880s. Home computers were largely clunky, nerds-only-and-that-means-boys enterprises in the 1970s. Television sucked in the 1910s. Things change. Whatever you think is good about the current, non-AI search environment, I can guarantee you (because I work with many of them) that thousands and thousands of Gen Z and Gen A kids regularly look around and internally scream "what is it with these fucking stone tablets!?! why would I go to a separate web page to look for different kinds of articles? and why is all this shit an article and not a video?"
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:14 AM on November 19 [2 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:14 AM on November 19 [2 favorites]
Bianca Wylie's thoughts on efficiency via Molly Crockett
Was the transcribing process efficient? Not really, there is probably writing to text or arguments to make for handing out ipads, or whatever else. But that inefficiency forced me to spend time with what I had to pay attention to. It was a written record of import, and I had now become responsible to the participants to figure out how to include it both accurately and appropriately in the reporting process.posted by audi alteram partem at 5:44 AM on November 19 [2 favorites]
This post/thread is why I support MF. I've gained more insight reading what you've written than I learned anywhere else.
As a tool, AI has its place to be able to help others. I look forward to us getting past the "neat trick, use everywhere for everything" phase so it becomes useful.
I don't like the search results or summarizations AI returns. I'm on Bing as my search tool and Copilot isn't quite there yet for my topics. At best, I click on the links provided in the summary.
I do worry about folks in my management team who currently search/read one or two pages on a topic and become "internet experts". AI allows them to read a page and I'm not confident what they're learning is correct.
posted by bacalao_y_betun at 6:11 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
As a tool, AI has its place to be able to help others. I look forward to us getting past the "neat trick, use everywhere for everything" phase so it becomes useful.
I don't like the search results or summarizations AI returns. I'm on Bing as my search tool and Copilot isn't quite there yet for my topics. At best, I click on the links provided in the summary.
I do worry about folks in my management team who currently search/read one or two pages on a topic and become "internet experts". AI allows them to read a page and I'm not confident what they're learning is correct.
posted by bacalao_y_betun at 6:11 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
I don’t know how we can communicate it to people that AI doesn’t and can’t tell the truth. So many examples in this thread and yet someone posting back who still takes AI search results at their word. It really bamboozles and depresses me. Similarly with human lies, really.
AI can tell the truth, but only by accident. LLM's attempt to produce human-like text that has the highest chance that it should follow the prompt. Producing something that follows the prompt that must ALSO be true is not within current LLM's capabilities. Depending upon its training data, the prompt, and any references it pulls from the internet, it may be a factual answer or it might be total lies it made up, because it has no way of telling the difference.
a) it's trained on stuff of the internet, which is full of lies
b) there's no searchable database of what is factually true or not for the vast majority of stuff on the internet
c) writing something that uses the same sentence structures as people do meets the goal, regardless of what actual words the AI pick. E.g. this chatGPT session I just ran.
There are ways to slightly tackle this, by for example, placing a lot more training weight on legitimate sources, but the problem is you need to feed them SO MUCH data in order to make it more human-y sounding, you have to also import a lot of raw material as English as written that includes lies and fiction. There's some developments with getting different models to debate with each other over what is the right answer and that can improve the likelihood of getting something that also happens to be true, at even greater cost of more power & more freshwater wasted, but the fundamental problem remains - the LLM AI doesn't and cannot know the difference between truth and lies, and its reasoning also is very lacking. So using it to summarize Search results, when you fundamentally want
a) a true answer and/or
b) more references to investigate further
is an epicly bad idea. Yay, google!
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 6:31 AM on November 19 [7 favorites]
AI can tell the truth, but only by accident. LLM's attempt to produce human-like text that has the highest chance that it should follow the prompt. Producing something that follows the prompt that must ALSO be true is not within current LLM's capabilities. Depending upon its training data, the prompt, and any references it pulls from the internet, it may be a factual answer or it might be total lies it made up, because it has no way of telling the difference.
a) it's trained on stuff of the internet, which is full of lies
b) there's no searchable database of what is factually true or not for the vast majority of stuff on the internet
c) writing something that uses the same sentence structures as people do meets the goal, regardless of what actual words the AI pick. E.g. this chatGPT session I just ran.
"Is my local park closed today at 2PM?"There is no park in (current village), and it used Yes instead of No. Yet the AI confidently asserts it's open at 2PM because most parks are. It could just as easily say "Yes, it's closed" next time, because it's only trying to write something that sounds plausible. If you're lucky it happens to find the right online nugget and is true, and if it can't find it, or uses a bad source, it would quite happily make something up and tell you elephants are the largest egg laying mammal, possibly because it ingested this popular Quora answer. Obviously that's been manually patched out now, but blacklisting stupid answers as people laugh about them online is clearly not addressing the fundamental flaw in the way people are being told they can use LLMs.
"Yes, your local park is open today at 2 PM. Most public parks in the UK are accessible throughout the day, and there is no specific information indicating that the park in (current village) is closed at this time."
There are ways to slightly tackle this, by for example, placing a lot more training weight on legitimate sources, but the problem is you need to feed them SO MUCH data in order to make it more human-y sounding, you have to also import a lot of raw material as English as written that includes lies and fiction. There's some developments with getting different models to debate with each other over what is the right answer and that can improve the likelihood of getting something that also happens to be true, at even greater cost of more power & more freshwater wasted, but the fundamental problem remains - the LLM AI doesn't and cannot know the difference between truth and lies, and its reasoning also is very lacking. So using it to summarize Search results, when you fundamentally want
a) a true answer and/or
b) more references to investigate further
is an epicly bad idea. Yay, google!
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 6:31 AM on November 19 [7 favorites]
There's been a few times I've actually used some of the examples Gemini has provided when I've searched for coding related questions, but in the past week alone Gemini has twice suggested I use API calls that don't exist and invented an entire python module that also doesn't seem to exist.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:38 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:38 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
It depresses me that the majority of the discussion around AI is about getting it to tell the truth, when that's the least interesting and least likely to succeed in a useful way. There are a hundred uses for LLMs that have nothing to do with telling the truth, and I wish AI companies had leaned into those instead of pushing it even harder to do one of the things its worst at--not out of the pursuit of limit-breaking, boundary-expanding stuff, but because they think that's most marketable even if it does a shit job of it.
posted by brook horse at 6:42 AM on November 19 [8 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 6:42 AM on November 19 [8 favorites]
Things change. Whatever you think is good about the current, non-AI search environment, I can guarantee you (because I work with many of them) that thousands and thousands of Gen Z and Gen A kids regularly look around and internally scream "what is it with these fucking stone tablets!?! why would I go to a separate web page to look for different kinds of articles? and why is all this shit an article and not a video?"
I have little sympathy for them having had to endure the shit previous generations forced upon me . If Gen Z and Gen A ever get to call the shots they can have all the crappy videos they want. Until then, I'm not going to worry about how they feel.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:42 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
I have little sympathy for them having had to endure the shit previous generations forced upon me . If Gen Z and Gen A ever get to call the shots they can have all the crappy videos they want. Until then, I'm not going to worry about how they feel.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:42 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
I wish AI was used to enhance search in mundane ways. For instance, if I am on LinkedIn and look up ten different people from the same company and then I search the name "Joe Smith," instead of burying me in a sea of the most mundane name ever, it really ought to be able to guess I mean the Joe Smith who works for the same company all of the other names I searched work for.
This would be useful.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:59 AM on November 19 [1 favorite]
This would be useful.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:59 AM on November 19 [1 favorite]
I'm going to be the outlier voice here judging from what's been said so far. But, I used Perplexity this weekend AND I LOVE IT. Why? For the first time in approx a decade I'm upgrading my PC. I got a used one that I needed to reformat and install from scratch. No idea, how WIndows does this at all. ANd one of the reasons I didn't do it is because I've so many apps it would take a monster chunk out of my time. I was supposed to meet up with friends on a warm weekend afternoon. Anyhow, I asked Perplexity: "I just got a used PC from a friend, what is the fastest way to update it?" It told me step by step. It mentioned Ninite. I followed the steps. Ninite ran by itself. I left early, and met my friends.
The OP complains that Perplexity and the like removes the rabbit-hole feature of old search engines. Well wtf, I don't want to go down a freakin' rabbit hole searching for the answer to a simple straightforward task.
posted by storybored at 7:04 AM on November 19 [2 favorites]
The OP complains that Perplexity and the like removes the rabbit-hole feature of old search engines. Well wtf, I don't want to go down a freakin' rabbit hole searching for the answer to a simple straightforward task.
posted by storybored at 7:04 AM on November 19 [2 favorites]
"Is my local park closed today at 2PM?"
Is this a question you would literally ask a friend? Using the word "local"?
posted by storybored at 7:07 AM on November 19 [1 favorite]
Is this a question you would literally ask a friend? Using the word "local"?
posted by storybored at 7:07 AM on November 19 [1 favorite]
Is this a question you would literally ask a friend? Using the word "local"?
I'd probably specify town/village if speaking to a friend, as we're spread out across a number of villages in my rural area (the British meaning of spread out being 20-30 miles, that'd probably count as neighbours in the US!), but it's a common word when searching for resources near yourself - e.g. https://www.gov.uk/find-your-local-park
Is that a Britishism? I hadn't realised. Note, "the local" means the pub you commonly go to, usually the closest.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 7:31 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
I'd probably specify town/village if speaking to a friend, as we're spread out across a number of villages in my rural area (the British meaning of spread out being 20-30 miles, that'd probably count as neighbours in the US!), but it's a common word when searching for resources near yourself - e.g. https://www.gov.uk/find-your-local-park
Is that a Britishism? I hadn't realised. Note, "the local" means the pub you commonly go to, usually the closest.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 7:31 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
With traditional search you might be directed to a webpage for your local council/town that is the authoritative source for information on whether a local park is open or not. The next time you ask the question, you might even skip search altogether and just go to that webpage because you know it has the most up to date information you seek.
AI search is positioning itself to be the authoritative source, and that's the problem because now you have to ask yourself how the AI knows the answer.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:00 AM on November 19 [5 favorites]
AI search is positioning itself to be the authoritative source, and that's the problem because now you have to ask yourself how the AI knows the answer.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:00 AM on November 19 [5 favorites]
In some ways it's the same kind of capture problem as we've seen with social media. People and organizations gave up websites and started posting directly to Facebook, Twitter etc so you needed to be a part of those communities in order to get mundane updates on whether trash pickup has been postponed or the new operating hours for the restaurant down the street. AI only makes it even more opaque, and I imagine it won't be long before the major players introduce some sort of conduit for content to be directly sent to the AI's training so that it can always provide up-to-date answers while forgoing the need for the AI to scrape webpages, thus further cementing the death of the open Internet.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:12 AM on November 19 [4 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:12 AM on November 19 [4 favorites]
It's so weird, seeing all the takes on AI that are based on its flaws today, both the underlying technology and the interface experience. Like, yes, cars were not great in the 1880s. Home computers were largely clunky, nerds-only-and-that-means-boys enterprises in the 1970s. Television sucked in the 1910s. Things change. Whatever you think is good about the current, non-AI search environment, I can guarantee you (because I work with many of them) that thousands and thousands of Gen Z and Gen A kids regularly look around and internally scream "what is it with these fucking stone tablets!?! why would I go to a separate web page to look for different kinds of articles? and why is all this shit an article and not a video?"
The problem with this version of AI is that it is not an improvement over what currently exists. They are instead a regression and a somewhat deceptive one. Cars, computers and televisions even when they sucked where still significant improvements pretty much right away. AI is feeling a lot like self-driving cars in that they are always a just a couple of Friedman Units away and have been for a decade.
And unlike cars, computers and televisions the one thing that LLMs can do is pollute both literally and figuratively at a scale we have not experienced before. They consume ridiculously enormous amounts of power resulting in huge greenhouse gases pollution and then their output is the equivalent of a toxic algae bloom in the knowledge production ecosphere that will coat everything and starve it of oxygen until everything that was alive in it is dead. Then even the LLM's will become fossilized relics starved of any meaningful new input.
posted by srboisvert at 8:14 AM on November 19 [6 favorites]
The problem with this version of AI is that it is not an improvement over what currently exists. They are instead a regression and a somewhat deceptive one. Cars, computers and televisions even when they sucked where still significant improvements pretty much right away. AI is feeling a lot like self-driving cars in that they are always a just a couple of Friedman Units away and have been for a decade.
And unlike cars, computers and televisions the one thing that LLMs can do is pollute both literally and figuratively at a scale we have not experienced before. They consume ridiculously enormous amounts of power resulting in huge greenhouse gases pollution and then their output is the equivalent of a toxic algae bloom in the knowledge production ecosphere that will coat everything and starve it of oxygen until everything that was alive in it is dead. Then even the LLM's will become fossilized relics starved of any meaningful new input.
posted by srboisvert at 8:14 AM on November 19 [6 favorites]
The problem with this version of AI is that it is not an improvement over what currently exists.
Have you used Perplexity? In many cases, but not all of course, it can replace posting on AskMeFi.
posted by storybored at 8:26 AM on November 19 [1 favorite]
Have you used Perplexity? In many cases, but not all of course, it can replace posting on AskMeFi.
posted by storybored at 8:26 AM on November 19 [1 favorite]
and why is all this shit an article and not a video?"
Sometimes videos are useful and sometimes they're not. If I need to refer to very particular settings, I want to see a list of settings I can duplicate, not wade through some "hey, guys!" dipshit running his mouth for two hours because he had to post a two-hour video to make money.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:37 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
Sometimes videos are useful and sometimes they're not. If I need to refer to very particular settings, I want to see a list of settings I can duplicate, not wade through some "hey, guys!" dipshit running his mouth for two hours because he had to post a two-hour video to make money.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:37 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
In many cases, but not all of course, it can replace posting on AskMeFi.
"Do not eat salsa that has been in the refrigerator for two months. This is well beyond the recommended storage time for both homemade and store-bought varieties. Even if the salsa looks and smells fine, consuming it poses significant food safety risks."
posted by mittens at 9:42 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
"Do not eat salsa that has been in the refrigerator for two months. This is well beyond the recommended storage time for both homemade and store-bought varieties. Even if the salsa looks and smells fine, consuming it poses significant food safety risks."
posted by mittens at 9:42 AM on November 19 [3 favorites]
Perplexity can only exist because of sites like AskMeFi that it can take answers from. If we stop posting, they stop working.
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:41 AM on November 19 [9 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:41 AM on November 19 [9 favorites]
Do not eat salsa that has been in the refrigerator for longer than two hours. This is well beyond the recommended storage time for both homemade and store-bought varieties. Even if the salsa looks and smells fine, consuming it poses significant food safety risks.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:27 PM on November 19 [3 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:27 PM on November 19 [3 favorites]
I grew up as the son of a university librarian--so my opinion may be skewed--but nothing on the internet matches going to a university library to seek and view oversize books.
posted by neuron at 1:50 PM on November 19 [2 favorites]
posted by neuron at 1:50 PM on November 19 [2 favorites]
Could we please stop making references to Idiocracy?
Donald Trump won the popular vote.
I understand the ick factor of "only stupid people are breeding", but I try to think of it like how The Matrix used the simplified nonsensical "humans as batteries" premise because compute farms weren't really a concept a lay audience could grasp. But strip out the eugenics-adjacent premise of Idiocracy (notably their world didn't genocide anyone, and still had class divisions) and you find a theme of global adoption of the lowest common denominator leading to fascism: corporate profits above all, a strongman President, show trials, anti-intellectualism, legacy admissions to law schools, neglected public infrastructure. They put forcibly put tattoos on people to track them. The parallels are not subtle. I think we should be talking about Idiocracy more, because
Donald Trump won the popular vote.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:50 PM on November 19 [2 favorites]
Donald Trump won the popular vote.
I understand the ick factor of "only stupid people are breeding", but I try to think of it like how The Matrix used the simplified nonsensical "humans as batteries" premise because compute farms weren't really a concept a lay audience could grasp. But strip out the eugenics-adjacent premise of Idiocracy (notably their world didn't genocide anyone, and still had class divisions) and you find a theme of global adoption of the lowest common denominator leading to fascism: corporate profits above all, a strongman President, show trials, anti-intellectualism, legacy admissions to law schools, neglected public infrastructure. They put forcibly put tattoos on people to track them. The parallels are not subtle. I think we should be talking about Idiocracy more, because
Donald Trump won the popular vote.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:50 PM on November 19 [2 favorites]
I understand the ick factor of "only stupid people are breeding", but I try to think of it like how The Matrix used the simplified nonsensical "humans as batteries" premise because compute farms weren't really a concept a lay audience could grasp.
Idiocracy was made in bad faith. I know it's hard to accept that given the parallels we're seeing today, but the movie meant everything it had to say about eugenics. And even if you overlook that, there are far too many people who are incapable of reading past the film's text and far too many people who absolutely do want to promote the "only stupid people are breeding" message as part of their racist agendas that whatever redeeming qualities the film might have are rendered highly toxic.
Just get over it and pick some other fictional allegory already.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:15 PM on November 19 [2 favorites]
Idiocracy was made in bad faith. I know it's hard to accept that given the parallels we're seeing today, but the movie meant everything it had to say about eugenics. And even if you overlook that, there are far too many people who are incapable of reading past the film's text and far too many people who absolutely do want to promote the "only stupid people are breeding" message as part of their racist agendas that whatever redeeming qualities the film might have are rendered highly toxic.
Just get over it and pick some other fictional allegory already.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:15 PM on November 19 [2 favorites]
you find a theme of global adoption of the lowest common denominator leading to fascism
The idea of there being a "lowest common denominator" when it comes to people is fascist. You can't measure the value and ability of human beings like that.
posted by brook horse at 2:32 PM on November 19 [2 favorites]
The idea of there being a "lowest common denominator" when it comes to people is fascist. You can't measure the value and ability of human beings like that.
posted by brook horse at 2:32 PM on November 19 [2 favorites]
I just found out bombastic lowercase pronouncements's account is closed, and I'm really sad about that.
They had been hinting a couple times about having a new username picked out, so I suspect they still walk among us. Probably using capital letters, too, the tricksy scamp.
posted by nobody at 2:50 PM on November 19 [3 favorites]
They had been hinting a couple times about having a new username picked out, so I suspect they still walk among us. Probably using capital letters, too, the tricksy scamp.
posted by nobody at 2:50 PM on November 19 [3 favorites]
The best fictional antecedent for LLMs that I can name is Tik-Tok (no connection to the video platform) from the Oz books (and the film Return to Oz). He is effectively a steampunk robot, preceding the invention of the word "robot" by a decade or two, and his three wind-up springs separately power his motion, thinking, and speaking. This means it's possible for him to speak without thinking at all (because the relevant wind-up powered down); when he does it's just gibberish, but L Frank Baum couldn't predict everything. Even to the extent that normal computer programs can be said to "think", LLMs just plain don't, not in the way people intutively expect when the output is coherent sentences. They're Tik-Tok.
Authors of subsequent fictional artificial intelligences tend to miss this possibility, and take for granted that anything which can convincingly communicate in a way seemingly indistinguishable from a human must have internal content which corresponds to the utterances. And, like, this is not technologically infeasible today -- for example, you could make a chess program which can talk meaningfully about the position of the board it is running. But in order to do that you'd have to basically design it with your own knowledge of chess in mind, rather than allow it to improvise. LLMs do nothing but improvise, and therefore it's meaningless to say they "hallucinate" except in the sense that literally everything they say is a hallucination. And there's not any middle ground currently available -- you can't have a program which improvises but also stays within the parameters of known facts or whatever, because "known facts" aren't a thing in the systems that are capable of even the slightest true improvisation. It can't even create an internal simulated dataset (like the chessboard) and communicate to you about it beyond a few sentences where it's still tethered to artificially "remember" what it had said before.
It's amusing how far-off this makes most predictions of artificial intelligence. If such a thing is ever (somehow) made possible and paired with LLMs for its communication, it'll be especially clear just how misplaced we were to postulate machines that are bound to talk in a stilted way, avoiding contractions, emotion, or any complexity beyond simple binaries; it'll be a lot more like dealing with a difficult toddler than anything.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 3:52 PM on November 19
Authors of subsequent fictional artificial intelligences tend to miss this possibility, and take for granted that anything which can convincingly communicate in a way seemingly indistinguishable from a human must have internal content which corresponds to the utterances. And, like, this is not technologically infeasible today -- for example, you could make a chess program which can talk meaningfully about the position of the board it is running. But in order to do that you'd have to basically design it with your own knowledge of chess in mind, rather than allow it to improvise. LLMs do nothing but improvise, and therefore it's meaningless to say they "hallucinate" except in the sense that literally everything they say is a hallucination. And there's not any middle ground currently available -- you can't have a program which improvises but also stays within the parameters of known facts or whatever, because "known facts" aren't a thing in the systems that are capable of even the slightest true improvisation. It can't even create an internal simulated dataset (like the chessboard) and communicate to you about it beyond a few sentences where it's still tethered to artificially "remember" what it had said before.
It's amusing how far-off this makes most predictions of artificial intelligence. If such a thing is ever (somehow) made possible and paired with LLMs for its communication, it'll be especially clear just how misplaced we were to postulate machines that are bound to talk in a stilted way, avoiding contractions, emotion, or any complexity beyond simple binaries; it'll be a lot more like dealing with a difficult toddler than anything.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 3:52 PM on November 19
Idiocracy was made in bad faith.
There's a difference between bad faith and deep cynicism. Mike Judge isn't trying to deceive anyone: he made Beavis and Butt-Head with the same low expectations misanthropy. The show was a hit. (Conversely, King of the Hill is when Judge creates a show with sympathy for flawed, uncool characters.)
The "smart" scientists in the waning days of Idiocracy's world didn't use their smarts to stop the decline; they were too busy inventing cures for male pattern baldness. That especially hits hard now when I look around at all the AI hype while the oceans burn. Judge also condemns "intelligent", non-"trashy" people as short-sighted idiots.
Just get over it and pick some other fictional allegory already.
That's the thing: I can't. There aren't any others! No fiction goes far enough to outpace a reality where Donald Trump wins reelection with the popular vote. No one in a position to make a movie was filled with enough raw cynicism.
The idea of there being a "lowest common denominator" when it comes to people is fascist.
Keep in mind, there's still class division in Idiocracy. The Brawndo CEO wears a suit, Frito is a lawyer. They're not poor in this world; they're the elites. The President and his cabinet have access to far more resources than the average person (e.g. huge vehicles and machine guns). But they're still idiots. The doctor's diagnosis of Joe is too crass for me to print here (it's almost Blazing Saddles level), but not seeing that the line is not meant to be laughed with is like decrying the infanticide and cannibalism in A Modest Proposal.
I get it. The movie's choice to tie "IQ" (a ridiculous concept itself) with genetics is lazy and gross and the multiracial society it portrays or Rita's savvy character isn't enough to undo all the punching down it does. But I can't write Idiocracy off entirely.
Donald Trump won reelection with the popular vote. RFK Jr. is going to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Matt Gaetz, Butt-Head himself, is somehow a real person and somehow is going to be the Attorney General. I just... can't.
posted by AlSweigart at 4:07 PM on November 19 [1 favorite]
There's a difference between bad faith and deep cynicism. Mike Judge isn't trying to deceive anyone: he made Beavis and Butt-Head with the same low expectations misanthropy. The show was a hit. (Conversely, King of the Hill is when Judge creates a show with sympathy for flawed, uncool characters.)
The "smart" scientists in the waning days of Idiocracy's world didn't use their smarts to stop the decline; they were too busy inventing cures for male pattern baldness. That especially hits hard now when I look around at all the AI hype while the oceans burn. Judge also condemns "intelligent", non-"trashy" people as short-sighted idiots.
Just get over it and pick some other fictional allegory already.
That's the thing: I can't. There aren't any others! No fiction goes far enough to outpace a reality where Donald Trump wins reelection with the popular vote. No one in a position to make a movie was filled with enough raw cynicism.
The idea of there being a "lowest common denominator" when it comes to people is fascist.
Keep in mind, there's still class division in Idiocracy. The Brawndo CEO wears a suit, Frito is a lawyer. They're not poor in this world; they're the elites. The President and his cabinet have access to far more resources than the average person (e.g. huge vehicles and machine guns). But they're still idiots. The doctor's diagnosis of Joe is too crass for me to print here (it's almost Blazing Saddles level), but not seeing that the line is not meant to be laughed with is like decrying the infanticide and cannibalism in A Modest Proposal.
I get it. The movie's choice to tie "IQ" (a ridiculous concept itself) with genetics is lazy and gross and the multiracial society it portrays or Rita's savvy character isn't enough to undo all the punching down it does. But I can't write Idiocracy off entirely.
Donald Trump won reelection with the popular vote. RFK Jr. is going to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Matt Gaetz, Butt-Head himself, is somehow a real person and somehow is going to be the Attorney General. I just... can't.
posted by AlSweigart at 4:07 PM on November 19 [1 favorite]
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And what happens when AI search has been thoroughly enshittified by the next generation of AI SEO and monetization? Is google really going to leave all that pay-for-placement money on the table, or will we be talking about how the AI was literally bribed to give only certain answers?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:38 AM on November 18 [33 favorites]