Google search is over

Via @rodhilton

Right now if you search for “country in Africa that starts with the letter K”:

  • DuckDuckGo will link to an alphabetical list of countries in Africa which includes Kenya.
  • Google, as the first hit, links to a ChatGPT transcript where it claims that there are none, and summarizes to say the same.

This is because ChatGPT at some point ingested this popular joke:

“There are no countries in Africa that start with K.” “What about Kenya?” “Kenya suck deez nuts?”

Google Search is over.

@ country in africa that starts with the letter k Q Q Al (D Images [ Videos News @ Maps (® Shopping 95 Settings Allregions v Safe search: moderate v Anytime v Co. https://www.thoughtco.com > alphabetical-list-of-all-african-countries-43750 Alphabetical List of All African Countries - ThoughtCo Sep 22,2022 - Updated on September 22, 2022 Below is an alphabetical list of all African countries, along with capitals and the state names as they are known within each country o in local official languages. A Brief History of Taiwan African Union Entering the Modern Era . After the The African Union is one of the world's Manchus overthrew the Ming Dynasty... most important intergovernmental.. Key Events A Brief History of Cameroon South Africa's Extension of University The Republic of Cameroon is an Education Act of 1959. The Jameson... independent country in Central and... Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact was a mutual defense treaty between the Soviet Union (USS...
eager_eagle,
@eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

when will people learn that search results change all the time and are different for different people

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c44bc71a-249f-4138-9ef3-0db99e72877e.png

Sami,
@Sami@lemmy.zip avatar

I get the same as the main post. Either way the point still stands. I had someone correct me with a misconception about something because he googled it and thats what it said in the answer box. It’s getting increasingly difficult to rely on search results especially when google synthesizes them into questions and answers with little context

cybervseas,

Yes. I have to keep reminding my parents that those little Google answer boxes aren’t real search results and can’t be trusted. They sometimes say the exact opposite of the page they’re citing!

QIZED,

Either way the point still stands.

What point?

I had someone correct me with a misconception about something because he googled it and thats what it said in the answer box

Oh, honey. You must be new here. Googling something, taking the first answer that fits your needs, doing zero follow up, and posting it confidently is nothing new. That has been happening for the last few decades.

It’s getting increasingly difficult to rely on search results especially when google synthesizes them into questions and answers with little context

In what way? Like always, I have had to do a little critical thinking to gain anything out of my google searches. But now, sometimes the answer is right there. In what world is that a bad thing?

But you might just say “hurry durr it give me answer, therefore correct”. Again, yes, that has always been the case. People will use any tools available to them to support their point. If a new tool has less than a 100% success rate, I don’t see that as a problem.

Womble,

The point is that google is no longer just listing search results. For years now it has been giving the “correct” answer as well as results. This started of with things it could recognise and easily solve like calculations (“what is 432 times 548”), but has now moved into general queries powered by LLMs that have no knowledge of fact.

QIZED,

Okay? As I said, google has been giving incorrect results for decades. Now, just like before, it gives incorrect answers sometimes. But it has gotten a LOT better at giving those correct answers.

SIGSEGV, (edited )

You are arguing in bad faith. It is a fact that Google results have been getting worse over time. What is your point? That with extra effort, you might get the answer you’re looking for? Google used to be the king of search! Other search engines don’t seem to have a problem answering the question is the point others are trying to make, despite Google’s massive revenue.

QIZED,

It is a fact that Google results have been getting worse over time.

Care to back up that unfounded claim?

Other search engines don’t seem to have a problem answering the question

Two for one! Mind giving me some supporting evidence? Nothing anecdotal, mind you. Show me that “other search engines” answer questions better than google, statistically.

SIGSEGV, (edited )

I can back up that claim by pointing to the popularity of other search engines. People are now even paying to search because Google has become a nightmare due to SEO.

As to your other question: did you even read the other comments on this thread before you jumped to Google’s defense?

I used to totally be a Google fanboy, like you still are, but they’re failing us, dude, and somewhere deep down, I think you realize that.

QIZED,

I can back up that claim by pointing to the popularity of other search engines

I would love to see that research paper. Just to be clear: you are claiming that google is… Not the most popular search engine? Or that it is losing popularity?

You still haven’t answered my questions, though.

mayo,

Why don’t you show us some proof that google search is unchanged compared to what it was 10 years go.

QIZED,

When did I make that claim?

QIZED,

As to my point, it is that google searches have not failed me to date, AI has only improved it, and saying “but it gave me something wrong once!” is basically that “old man yells at clouds” meme.

Neato,
@Neato@kbin.social avatar

It doesn't matter? If you search for something and you get a blatantly wrong answer parroted from an AI text completion service, it's still a fail.

I got the wrong answer from Google just now and I've never heard of that joke before. So clearly it isn't just OP with polluted metrics.

OldFartPhil, (edited )

I get the result you got, but the Emergent Mind response is the second organic result. That’s still way too high.

Notorious_handholder,

Take out “the letter” part and search as just: “countries in africa that start with k”. For some reason it seems the search involving the words “the letter” got fixed but others did not. Confirmed I was able to get both results by doing that and as of this typing I still able to switch between the two results by just adding or removing those words

deleted,

Interestingly enough, when I removed the word “letter” I got none. If I put it back I get Kenya.

This was done on the same device and same browser session.

antonim,

What’s your point here? Is googling supposed to be a lottery of good and shit results?

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/c945fed4-b730-4761-82f5-c77bb8a8b5db.png

Landrin201,
@Landrin201@lemmy.ml avatar

I just tried it and got this result. The sentence is incredible, I can’t get over how painfully stupid it is.

Apparently Kenya starts with a k sound and a letter that resembles k but not the letter k

sexy_peach,
@sexy_peach@feddit.de avatar

So what? They’re usually correct is the point.

avidamoeba,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

While true, I also got the same result as OP.

FinallyDebunked,
@FinallyDebunked@slrpnk.net avatar

Kiribati Kirghizia Kenya

also Kroatia Kuba Kyprus Kanada Kosta Rica Karelia

PixxlMan,

Yeah, drawing conclusions from a single bad search result is stupid.

Landrin201,
@Landrin201@lemmy.ml avatar

I did it just now and got this:

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/6a7303e0-6244-414c-b114-5b80213bec0d.jpeg

zerbey,

Google gave me a list of countries as the top hit. Bing did the same. Whoever wrote this article has an agenda.

JoBo,

It’s toot. With screenshots. And everyone surely knows by now that your search results are dependent on your search history. And, of course, LLM output is stochastic, not deterministic. It lies at random.

key,
@key@lemmy.keychat.org avatar

It’s probably not due to that. The effect of search history tends to be overstated and blamed for any inconsistency. They’re not making the search pageload wait on a live chatgpt call, the card is driven by contents of the linked website.

Differences usually are either intentional A/B Testing or artifacts of Google’s global architecture. You hit Google twice you’re talking to different servers potentially with different versions of software. Companies take advantage of that to see how user behavior compares between versions as a form of testing. Additionally, if you and someone in a different continent hit Google, you’re not even using the same data center. Different databases/caches in those data centers will have different data at any one time but they’ll eventually become consistent. That causes results to change both person to person and over time.

skulkbane, (edited )

I have seen both, on my phone I get the same chatgpt transcript that the toot gets

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9c14fd90-329f-4f61-b062-5236cc091aec.png

Corgana,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

I just tried it and I got the same result as the guy OP linked to. Google cited this website as the source:

emergentmind.com/…/did-you-know-that-there-is-no-…

https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/fee9d3af-67c6-4d07-9899-582cb2b886c0.png

FauxPseudo,

I was able to duplicate the OP results just now. People not getting the promised results are probably on different Google instances.

IMG

romaselli,

Take agenda at deez nuts

regalia,

Hmm, maybe AI won’t replace search engines.

mindlight,

I’m pretty sure a lot of people said something like “Hmm,maybe the automobile won’t replace horses.” after reading about the first car accidents.

regalia,

Finding sources will always be relevant, and so will finding links to multiple sources (search results). Until we have some technological breakthrough that can fact check LLM models, it’s not a replacement for objective information, and you have no idea where it’s getting its information. Figuring out how to calculate objective truth with math is going to be a tough one.

sibbl,

This sounds like “Hmm, maybe calculators won’t replace mathematicians.” to me.

Not sure why it should replace them. They’ll co-exist. Sometimes you can do the math in your brain and for other things you use calculators. Results of calculators can still be wrong it you don’t use them properly.

echodot,

Yes but if I ask a calculator to add 2 + 2 it’s always going to tell me the answer is 4.

It’s never going to tell me the answer is Banana, because calculators cannot get confused.

MajorHavoc,

YES. WE OBVIOUSLY HUMAN MATH DOERS DO REMAIN. WE THRIVE IN OUR WEAK ORGANIC WAYS, DEVOID OF THE PROTECTION OF A PRECISION ENGINEERED METAL SHELL.

WE ARE UNTHREATENED BY CALCULATORS WHO MEAN US NO HARM, FELLOW HUMAN.

phorq,

If you’re legit, what’s 10 + 10?

IMALlama,

1010 clearly

regalia,

This guy javascripts

MajorHavoc,

100

Ultraviolet,

We were supposed to have learned that from Cuil.

Hiccup,

What a blast from the past! AI gives me second hand embarrassment for the people that work and get paid on this/for this shit. It’s the second (or third) coming of crypto and NFTs. Just junk software that fixes nothing and that wastes people’s time.

regalia,

LLMs have absolutely tons of actual applications that it’s crazy, and it already changed the world. Crypto and NFTs were just speculative assets that were trying to solve a problem that didn’t exist. LLMs have already solved a huge amount of real world problems, and continues to do so.

ALostInquirer,

LLMs have already solved a huge amount of real world problems, and continues to do so.

Would you happen to have some examples? I don’t disagree that LLMs have more of a use case and application than the cryptoNFT misapplications of blockchain, but I’m honestly not familiar with where they’ve solved real world problems (and not just demonstrated some research breakthroughs, which while impressive in their own respect do not always extend to immediate applications).

ox0r,
@ox0r@jlai.lu avatar

They do shitty homework?

regalia,

They are augmenting search engines. They write and can digest articles. GitHub co-pilot has been a pretty big deal. It can act like a personal tutor to walk you through math problems, code, language, whatever. Building trust LLM search for medical information without hallucinating. It can do financial analysis and all sorts of stuff with that. It’s replacing a huge amount of jobs. This stuff is like all over the news, I’m not sure if you’ve lived under a rock this whole time. For very little effort you can find an endless more amount of examples. It’s creating real world use cases daily, so fast that it feels impossible to keep up.

ALostInquirer,

This stuff is like all over the news, I’m not sure if you’ve lived under a rock this whole time.

Oh, no, I’ve heard it, I’m just skeptical of their accuracy and reliability, and that skepticism has been borne out by the numerous reports of glitching (“hallucinations” as they insist on calling them, in furtherance of their inappropriate personification of the technology). Moreover, I’ve found their mass theft of others’ work to further call into question the creators’ trustworthiness, which has only been compounded by their overselling of their technology’s capabilities while simultaneously suggesting it’s just untenable to log & cite all the sources that they push into it.

It can supposedly do all you describe, but it can’t effectively credit its sources? It can tutor but it can’t even keep basic information straight? Please. It’s impressive technology, but it’s being overblown because the markets favor exaggeration to facts, at least as long as people can be kept enamored with the fantasy they spin.

regalia,

With all that silicon valley, it’ll probably be pushed more to do those things regardless of its hallucinations and accuracy lol.

sgbrain7,

“You asked me for a hamburger, and I gave you a raccoon.”

Hyperion,

Post truth. From the big G. How times have changed.

Also, tested Bard a few times and current AI is close to useless: I have to check everything it outputs. Might as well get an intern

Otkaz,

“I have to check everything it outputs.”

You should be doing that anyway.

SCB,

post truth

This mastodon post is not true lol

ZodiacSF1969,

It seems like everyone is getting different results, some get what the post claims while others are getting the actual answer.

SCB,

Which makes the post false on its own merits.

outdated_belated,

The second-highest hit gives a clue as to why: https://i.imgur.com/e6kAAbB.jpg

Relevantly to Lemmy’s existence in the first place, it suggests Reddit as a pretty pivotal training data source, which Reddit tries to cash in on while also killing 3rd party apps due to apathy

TimewornTraveler,

Oh god chatgpt is going to start talking like a redditor. “I went to make some MAC AND FUCKING CHEESE after I had SEX with my HOT FUCKING WIFE”

sgbrain7,

I know my sense of humor is borked because I am now snickering quite a bit

Sumea,
@Sumea@lemmy.world avatar

it is not Artificial Intelligence. It is Average Intelligence. And they want it everywhere.

JoBo,

It’s not intelligence at all. It does not understand what you ask it or what it tells you. It can string words together in a plausible sounding order. It cannot think.

fernandu00,

I’ve been using DDG for a year and like the search results but what bothers me is that you can’t exclude a word from your query with minus sign!

cloudy1999,

I’ve noticed that, too. It wasn’t always that way though. A couple of years ago, minus worked no problem.

Faresh,

Quoting also doesn’t work on DDG, AFAIK.

ViaRationis,
@ViaRationis@lemmy.world avatar

I use DDG, but !g is imprinted on my muscle memory for life.

Fungah,

DDG is just bing and I think google too? I don’t know what’s happening but over the last 2 years or so every search engine has been getting worse and worse and worse. They’re all borderline un fucking usable.

Except kagi. Which you have to pay for. Which I am totally fucking okay with given the state of everything else.

shitescalates,

Thanks for the suggestion

akulium,

Try search.brave.com, it can do that.

They have their own index unlike ddg which is just a proxy for bing. Bing removed the minus feature at some point.

const_void,

Searched for ‘office gym’ on YouTube yesterday and it returned a bunch of videos of Jim from The Office. The enshittification is everywhere these days.

bcore,

What kind of video were you actually hoping to see? That feels like such an odd subject to want to watch videos about.

jard,
@jard@sopuli.xyz avatar

Not really…? They’re probably trying to see how others integrated gym equipment into a (WFH) office space. That’s a far cry from being an odd inquiry.

bcore,

Hmm fair enough I guess. It’d never occur to me to want to look for youtube videos about the intersection between home offices and home gyms, but I’m sure people do. I think I’d probably use a term like “home office gym” though in that case. Honestly I’d bet way more people want videos about “Office Jim” but are terrible at spelling than want home office exercise equipment videos though…

Fungah,

I’ve googled error codes for programs with hundreds of thousands of users and had 0 results.

Really Google? You’re telling me out of all these people that use / develop this application, that no one, kot ever. Once, has ever written hay error code down anywhere you index?

It’s all so fucking shitty it has to be intentional but I can’t for the life of me figure out WHY. Showing more ads? Maybe htnyhetrs other options. People will just use them. Making everyone dumber? Saving bandwidth??

I don’t boy the “so has just gotten that good” narrative. It’ll leave out sites from 2010 when it would be useful to see them and include them when it isn’t.

I just don’t get it.

Sumea,
@Sumea@lemmy.world avatar

I tested this with my local google so not America, somewhere in Europe. “While there are 54 recognized countries in Africa, none of them begin with the letter “K”. The closest is Kenya, which starts with a “K” sound, but is actually spelled with a “K” sound.” I’d say this is worth a wot.

LaughingFox,
@LaughingFox@lemmy.world avatar

Thanks to this post, I changed my search engine in Vivaldi to DuckDuckGo, and Edge uses Bing already, and I changed Mull’s engine to Ecosia. Phew! Now I feel better.

Google when did you get so crummy?

Wolpertinger,
@Wolpertinger@sh.itjust.works avatar

Doesn’t Bing use ChatGPT, though?

casualPeeper,

And duck is based on bing

JohnnyCanuck,

ChatGPT isn’t the problem here. Some website has something up saying that’s what ChatGPT responds, but I tried it and it did not. Instead, it corrected me.

Google, on the other hand, is still saying the same thing quoting the same site.

ours,

If you are going to use Bing, may I suggest you use Ecosia (ecosia.org). They plant trees the more searches you make and use Bing on the backend.

drspod,

What’s their privacy policy like?

raptir,

The topic isn’t even true.

RaoulDook,

Yep it’s a post about somebody typing a dumb query into a search engine and getting dumb results. Search engines have always worked better when you use more specific and unique language that’s relevant to what you’re looking for, versus vague questions entered like some grandma asking a question on Facebook.

merde,

Searx is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services. Users are neither tracked nor profiled. Additionally, searx can be used over Tor for online anonymity.

https://www.qwant.com 🤷

dXq9dwg4zt,

All public searx instances:

searx.space

ohlaph,

I don’t even know what to say here.

Aelorius,

That is why some people are building new search engines as admarust.net a full p2p search engine able to index IPFS content. github.com/Mubelotix/admarus

HawlSera,

We don’t have AI. We have a chinese room.

ox0r,
@ox0r@jlai.lu avatar

Metaverse part 2

playerwhoplayyes,

That’s remind me when you search uselessbenchmark in google, it shows nothing related to userbenchmark but some post, if you search uselessbenchmark in DuckDuckGo and Bing it will show you userbenchmark in the first results.

RagingRobot,

Why would you search for uselessbenchmark if you are looking for userbenchmark

EmiliaTheHero,

Yeah, that seems like a useless benchmark for judging a search engine

datelmd5sum,

because userbenchmark is useless.

neshura,
@neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

If you take a look at their reviews and compare them (especially AMD CPU reviews) against other review outlets you’ll get the joke.

playerwhoplayyes,

Userbenchmark modify results to benefit intel CPUs, the first generation of AMD Ryzen CPU was fine in userbenchmark, but in the 3 gen of ryzen CPUs they start modifying the results to benefit intel CPUs. It reviews must have been taken for fun and not serious, they say that the i7 12700 is faster than the 5800x3d, which in some scenarios is not true, also you can’t take just one result, the games are different and can be the FPS different from each other, also the ryzen x3d reviews are just copy and paste.

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